HOUSE and HOME 

A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK 
MARY ELIZABETH CARTER 





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THE WOMAN'S 
HOME LIBRARY 




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Class LM4S_ 

Book 3151 

Copyright^ . 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



House 

and 

Home 

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Gbe Woman's 1bome Xtbrar$ 

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EDITED BY MRS. MARGARET E. 8ANQ8TER 

A 8ERIES OF PRAOTICAL BOOKS ON PRAC- 
TICAL Subjects by the Best Authorities 

EACH SMALL I2MO. CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. Sl.OO NET. 

1-WOMEN'S WAYS OFEARNING MONEY 

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President-General of the International Sunshine Society 

2-THE MOTHERS' MANUAL 

BY emelyn L. COOLIDGE, m. d. 

Visiting Physician of the Out-Patient Department of the 

Babies' Hospital, N. Y., Eto. 

3-BEAUTY THROUGH HYGIENE 

Common Sense Ways to Beauty and Health 

By EMMA E. WALKER, M. D. 

Member of the N. Y. Aoademy of Medicine, Ktc. 

4 HOUSE AND HOME 

A Practical Book on Home Management 
BY MISS M. E. CARTER 

5-THE COURTESIES 

A Handbook of Etiquette 

By MISS ELEANOR B. CLAPP 

6-CORRECT WRITING AND SPEAKING 

By MISS MARY A. JORDAN 

Professor of English Literature, Smith College 

Mrs. Sangster's Series constitute the most helpful and 
suggestive practical home library which has been planned. 

U. S. Barnes & Company 

156 Fifth Avenue New York 

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£l THE WOMAN'S HOME LIBRARY 

Q, Edited by Margaret E. Sangster 



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House and Home 8 



A Practical Book on Home 
Management 



By 



Mary Elizabeth Carter 







NEW YORK 

A. S. Barnes & Company 

1904 



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Copyright, 1904, 
By A. S. BARNES & CO. 

September 



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To the bone and sinew of our nation, those 
who are comfortably off, far removed from the 
millionaire-realm, equally far removed from 
those whose lives are hard, sad, and laborious, 
these pages are addressed. Through the ex- 
amples which they set and the character of the 
homes which they build up, will this country 
stand or fall. 

*' Everything that a dwelling contains is bathed in 
an ether of 'personality ." — Charles Wagner, 



V CONTENTS 



U 



PAGE 



I. Choosing a Home . . .11 
II. Packing to Move ... 30 

III. Cleaning and Settling a 

Home 43 

IV. Furnishing the Home . . 61 
V. Bed Chambers .... 79 

VI. Bath Room and Bath-room 

Etiquette .... 87 
VII. Care of Beds and Bedsteads . 96 
VIII. Servants' Rooms . . .112 
IX. Servants' Rights and Privi- 
leges 123 

X. Engaging and Discharging 

Servants . . . .135 
XL Kitchen and Cooking . .147 
XII. To Obtain and Retain the 

Ideal Servant . . .158 
XIII. Training a Maid in Table- 
setting 165 

7 



8 


CONTENTS 




CHAPTER 




PAGE 


XIV. 


Training a Maid for Wait- 






ing on Table . 


172 


XV. 


Children's Place and Rights 






in Their Own Home 


186 


XVI. 


Home Nursing 


207 


XVII. 


Home Nursing {continued) . 


220 


XVIII. 


The Unpaid Working House- 






keeper .... 


239 


XIX. 


Books that Should Be in 






the Home .... 


248 


XX. 


Miscellaneous Hints for 






Housewives 


256 



rr EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION U 

The house is the shell of the home, the out- 
ward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual 
grace which abides within its walls. Therefore 
everything that concerns the house is important, 
and no detail is insignificant. The house, it is 
true, perishes with the using, and must be con- 
tinually renewed, beautified, and strengthened, 
that it may continue to be the appropriate shrine 
for the home, which is of enduring substance. 
This is a truth to be forever repeated over and 
over in emphatic statement, all the more that we 
live in a day when lax ideas of its sacredness have 
in some quarters obtained a footing and menaced 
the solidity of the home. In the home the family 
attains its finest development, and only as house 
and home together approach the perfect ideal, 
can the family receive its best nurture, and 
realize its highest usefulness. 

Miss M. E. Carter, the author of this excel- 
lent and practical treatise on " House and 
Home," knows whereof she speaks. She under- 
stands the ordinary routine of the ordinary home, 
where comfort is sought rather than display, 
where dignified economy must be enforced, and 
where self-respecting people scorn to live beyond 

9 



io EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

their honest means. To the young housekeeper 
her suggestions will be pertinent and timely; 
replete with hints for which more pretentious 
volumes might be laboriously searched, sometimes 
in vain. The experienced matron will read 
these pages with approval, finding her own ideas 
confirmed, and her views broadened, because the 
writer's standpoint is thoroughly up to date, a 
necessity not to be overlooked in a manual of 
housekeeping and homemaking in our advanced 
days. 

The book is not didactic. It is relieved by 
humor, and enriched by pleasing anecdote and 
clever illustration. 

The Woman's Home Library preserves in 
every issue, the keynote of adaptability to the 
common lot and the simple life. This keynote 
has not been lost in " House and Home." 

Whether the author treats of foundations as 
when writing about the cellar, or of the shelter- 
ing roof which must be impervious to wet 
weather and wind, of the bath-room, the kitchen, 
the living-room, or my lady's chamber, she is 
direct, lucid, and pithy. 

The book she has written will prove itself a 
household friend. 

Margaret E. Sangster. 



u 



CHAPTER ONE 



U 



CHOOSING A HOME 



Three points foremost in importance. Landlords' criminal negli- 
gence about sanitary plumbing. Main traps. Hot water 
supply. Tragic death from falling chimney. 




tr 

N order that this book shall prove 
of the most practical value 
to the largest possible number 
of readers, specific attention 
has been given throughout to 
questions of expense. 

Whether a house is to be built, purchased, or 
leased, or an apartment rented, the matter of cost 
is of importance to the great majority, and the 
advice given in these pages is intended to be prac- 
tical. 

This question of cost must be kept closely in 
mind in dealing with architects and builders. 
While they are trained for this work they are 
liable to errors of judgment. They may be dis- 
posed to be lavish in their expenditures and not 
as careful in regard to the expenditures of the 

ii 



i2 HOUSE AND HOME 



money of others as they would be in their own 
case. 

The especial weakness of architects is shown 
in an undue concern for what they term the 
architectural line. To that they often sacrifice 
the interior comfort and good ventilation of a 
house. Therefore those who leave the planning 
of their houses entirely to an architect usually find 
cause later to regret their exceeding trustful- 
ness, and if they can afford the extra outlay, are 
apt to spend several years and considerable 
money in making necessary changes to correct 
serious faults in the new home. Especially on 
the lower and top floors, where it is particularly 
needed, the average architect neglects to arrange 
for good ventilation, and, in his anxiety about 
appearances rarely plans to utilize all the avail- 
able space to provide ample closet room. His 
planning, when not modified and improved upon 
by suggestions of an experienced housewife, 
often reminds one of a showily dressed person 
who is minus comfortable underclothing. Win- 
dows for show or ornament take precedence be- 
fore windows that are easy to open, close, and 
keep clean. A marked improvement would 
soon appear in their designs if architects could be 
compelled, for a time, to occupy the houses which 



CHOOSING A HOME 13 

they plan. Then they would design no windows 
that could not easily be opened wide enough for 
cleaning their outsides comfortably and also for 
reaching every part of the blinds when dusting 
them. Doors would not open one against an- 
other to their serious detriment — damaging fur- 
niture with the risk of hurting persons moving 
in haste, in and out. 

Whatever one requires when building or buy- 
ing a house is also desirable, as far as may be pos- 
sible to secure it, when one is renting. In every 
case three things stand foremost in importance — 
the condition of the roof; the wholesomeness 
and convenience of the cellar; and the character 
of the plumbing. Whether the home be hand- 
some and expensive or simple and inexpensive, a 
tight roof, a dry and well-arranged cellar, and 
sanitary plumbing throughout are, each and all, 
indispensable to comfortable living and the 
preservation of the occupants' health. These 
three very important portions of every house 
worthy to be converted into a home should be 
carefully examined at the outset, and if any one 
of them should prove seriously objectionable, or 
past reformation without expense beyond the 
purse-limit, no further time should be wasted 
investigating other parts of the premises, A 



i4 HOUSE AND HOME 

leaky roof entails perpetual unrest in the house- 
hold whenever it rains, and unexpected expenses 
that can never be estimated. Besides this the 
housewife all the time will be vexed by unsightly 
walls and ceilings, falling plaster, and general 
untidiness on the upper floor, with the ever pos- 
sible danger of water leaking through to the 
floor below, damaging whatever it wets. No 
one can foresee where, when, or what mischief 
may be done through a leaky roof. 

A damp cellar affects the entire house, making 
an unwholesome atmosphere throughout the 
building. Dampness invariably unfits it for 
the numerous uses to which a good, dry cellar 
may be put. It also deprives the housekeeper of 
an important storing place for trunks, boxes, and 
countless articles that might always find tem- 
porary harbor in a dry cellar and thus relieve 
other portions of the house of things temporarily 
out of use, awaiting their times of service. A 
dry, well-ventilated, and light cellar, — con- 
veniently partitioned off for wood, coal, barrels 
of winter vegetables and fruit, with closets and 
storerooms for an orderly arrangement of every- 
thing consigned to it, — contributes greatly to 
ease in housekeeping and is a good housewife's 
delight. But a damp, dark, non-ventilated 



CHOOSING A HOME 15 

cellar is a perpetual nuisance — really worse than 
none at all, because it is an unceasing menace to 
the health and life of those who are doomed to 
dwell over it. 

The stairway leading down to the cellar ought 
to be strong, and wide enough for taking bulky 
things up and down without striking and defac- 
ing the wall. The balusters and the whole 
structure should be so firm as to insure the safety 
of those who are obliged to use it. These pre- 
cautious are not so costly in the end, as unwhole- 
some or rickety conditions frequently prove. 
Many pretentious-looking houses — built to sell 
— have disgraceful cellars, altogether unfit for 
any use. " Penny wise and pound foolish," 
should be written over their lintels. Show me 
the cellar of a house and I will read for you the 
character of the person responsible for its 
character. 

The subject of plumbing would seem to have 
been thoroughly exploited through pen and voice 
and law. Nevertheless many house-owners are 
persistent transgressors of the laws and utterly 
unconscionable about the unsanitary plumbing 
of the houses which they lease to unwary 
tenants. Few people realize the vital impor- 
tance of having the plumbing in their homes as 



16 HOUSE AND HOME 

perfect as modern science can make it. And no 
one can estimate the constitutions that have 
been broken down and the varied forms of suf- 
fering that have been entailed upon defenseless 
human beings because of the culpable negligence 
of landlords and their tenants' ignorance with 
regard to the unsanitary plumbing of their 
houses. It is amazing to learn what landlords 
are sometimes guilty of in their determined 
efforts to evade the law and escape expense. An 
illustration of this came to the writer's knowl- 
edge some time ago. While regularly visiting 
the old Tombs in New York for the purpose of 
seeing how the unfortunates there incarcerated 
were treated, the case of a young man in one of 
the cells proved unusually interesting. He con- 
fided the story of his life to the writer. It was 
sad and bad. He was an adopted child, and had 
received many advantages with a good educa- 
tion. And yet he had* committed a forgery for 
which he had paid the penalty in State's Prison. 
Again he was awaiting trial for a serious offense 
against the law. But he had tried to lead an 
honest life of self-support after his first term in 
prison had expired. Although he gave his em- 
ployers satisfaction, no position was he allowed 
to fill in peace. Someone who knew his past 



CHOOSING A HOME 17 

always discovered his whereabouts and invariably 
caused his discharge by informing his employer 
that he was a " State's Prison Bird." No one 
had courage enough to give him a chance after 
that. Finding his endeavors at honest work fu- 
tile he despaired and then went and joined one 
like himself. Together they put up some shady 
jobs for getting money to live. The other knew 
all about plumbing and was an expert examiner. 
The two went about calling at houses and repre- 
senting themselves as city employees, officially 
engaged in the business of investigating and de- 
tecting the character of the plumbing in houses 
of the district that they were visiting. They 
often found it unsanitary. When notifying an 
unwilling house-owner they gave him his choice 
of promptly attending to the required work or 
else agreed to let him off, if he would pay them a 
much smaller sum than the estimated cost of 
having the plumbing overhauled. Men, sup- 
posedly reputable, were ready to evade the law, 
bribe the supposed officials, and neglect the un- 
sanitary plumbing of their houses. One cannot 
but feel how little there was to choose between 
these poor hunted criminals — who ha4 forfeited 
their chances for doing honest work because they 
had been detected in, and paid the penalty of, 



18 HOUSE AND HOME 

their wrong-doing — and those others who, al- 
though they escaped detection, were yet unhesi- 
tating parties to a double offense against the 
law, and also totally indifferent that the health 
and lives of their fellow-beings were endangered 
through their criminal negligence. Those two 
guilty associates were able for some time to 
turn many a dishonest dollar, aided and abetted 
by their accomplices, the guilty landlords. Al- 
though never detected the two conspirators after 
a while grew tired of their plot, because it did 
not yield larger returns. The next downward 
step led to arrest and eleven months' waiting in 
the Tombs for a trial. 

Crimes of reputable citizens are little known. 
Crimes against criminals are many and less 
known. The story of both has yet to be written, 
but ample material awaits the writer who may 
choose to undertake the task. 

Perhaps this seems to be a digression. But, 
if these be undeniable facts, assuredly inexperi- 
enced people need every possible warning to 
guard them against their landlord's reckless neg- 
ligence of duty and the law. 

It is a well-authenticated fact that very dele- 
terious exhalations from faulty plumbing have 
no perceptible odor. This makes the menace 



CHOOSING A HOME 19 

to health and life much more insidiously danger- 
ous. Therefore no one, when looking for a 
house, should decide to make it a home until 
all the plumbing has been scrutinized by a con- 
scientious expert and then pronounced very good 
in the strongest sense of that term applied to 
plumbing. Amateurs may apply the peppermint 
test and also examine the cellar-trap leading to 
the street sewer, which is an indispensable feature 
of thorough house plumbing, and ought to be so 
constructed as to discharge everything unob- 
structed and with no backward flow. But after 
all, it is far better to pay an expert and know for 
a certainty that the plumbing is immaculate or 
faulty than to risk broken constitutions and doc- 
tor's bills that are always much more costly and 
less satisfactory than any examiner's bill could 
possibly be. Here the old adage applies forcibly: 
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 
After being convinced that the roof, the cellar, 
and the plumbing are above reproach it will be 
worth while to proceed farther and examine 
other important parts of the house. The rain- 
water leaders, the chimneys, the flues, the 
kitchen range, and the size of the boiler that is 
expected to furnish the supply of hot water for 
family use, the furnace or steam heater, the 



2o HOUSE AND HOME 

laundry (and its conveniences) each and all 
should receive close attention. 

The kitchen range and chimney flue are ex- 
ceedingly important, for, however capable the 
cook, it is useless to expect good cooking without 
a good range and a good draught. The cook 
cannot be held responsible for tardy meals or for 
sending in unpalatable food if compelled to use 
a faulty range or if subjected to the freaks of a 
defective flue. Her " heart may be almost broke 
over it," but that will not remedy the defects. 
Moreover, the family may be seriously incon- 
venienced and have to live for a time in a picnic 
way, or else go out for meals while these matters 
are being set right. 

Investigate the condition of the leaders to see 
if they are sound and clean — not clogged — and 
that they deliver the rain water without damage 
to anything, and that they are large enough to 
carry during a long and heavy storm without 
overflowing from the roof and flooding all below 
and even beating in doors. 

Examine all the chimneys above the roof to 
be assured that they are firm, with no loose 
cement or bricks, and in no danger of falling or 
being blown down. 

A few years ago, in a beautiful city of great 



CHOOSING A HOME 21 

wealth, a young lady — living in a handsomely 
situated house, apparently in repair, for which 
a good price was paid — while quietly sleeping 
in her bed was killed by the falling of a chimney 
in the night. The bricks and heavy paving 
stones broke through the roof and ceiling and 
fell upon her body. She was terrified and so 
badly hurt that she died very soon after from 
the effect of the injuries. Such, miscalled, acci- 
dents should warn all who hear of them to take 
nothing for granted, but investigate every part 
carefully before hiring or buying a house. In 
these cases the maxim, used in law, caveat emptor, 
applies, which means that the buyer should 
beware and assure himself as to the quality 
of what he buys. In simple English, when you 
have every opportunity to examine what you 
think of buying (and it applies also to renting) 
there is no redress for you through a legal action, 
unless you can prove that you have been willfully 
deceived by the other party when you were not 
afforded the chance to find out particulars for 
yourself. 

If you want open fires and good draughts 
throughout your house, then you must test 
every flue as you pass from room to room. 
An open fireplace with attractive tiling by no 



22 HOUSE AND HOME 

means assures one of a strong draught up a well- 
constructed flue. On the contrary, one may be 
woefully disappointed upon making the first at- 
tempt at having a blaze on the hearth when, 
instead of beautiful flame pennons soaring and 
roaring up the chimney, a choking, blinding 
smoke comes pouring out into the room, compel- 
ling unexpected tears even from manly eyes, 
and making the place untenable until the smudge 
is smothered and all the smoke has evaporated. 
Nor is this all, for, however well ventilated the 
place may be, nice curtains and delicate furnish- 
ings are afterwards found smoke-damaged, be- 
yond restoration if not washable; if washable, 
an extra job is entailed upon the house laundry, 
or extra outside laundry expenses deplete the 
household purse. Those expenses could not have 
been incurred by wary ones taught through 
their own experience or forewarned by that of 
others. Besides all this annoyance it will be 
some time before the dead old smoke ceases to 
hang about the place, and of course that chimney 
flue will permit no open fire upon the hearth 
thereafter until its fault has been remedied. 
You may congratulate yourself if it only needs 
cleaning instead of examination by an expert, 
and then reconstruction, to be followed by an 



CHOOSING A HOME 23 

appalling bill of expense. Indeed, there are 
some defective flues in expensive houses that defy 
every effort made to remedy them — even re- 
gardless of the cost. There is but one way in 
which they can ever be made to draw — that 
they do continuously upon your bank account — 
as long as experiments are being made upon 
them to improve their construction. 

Another all-important feature of a house, 
upon which the comfort of the entire family 
depends, is the heating apparatus. 

The best way to find out about its capacity is 
to make inquiry regarding it of some persons 
using one of the same kind in some other house. 
You should try to get a perfectly frank state- 
ment as to its heating power in proportion to 
its consumption of fuel. But, of course, you 
must also learn about the draught and other 
particulars relating to the house that you have 
under special consideration. People who neglect 
to inform themselves in advance about these 
matters sometimes discover when it is too late 
that the cost of coal for heating makes such un- 
expected inroads upon their incomes they are 
compelled to abandon the cellar heater and 
warm their houses with stoves and open fires. 
A young couple, acquaintances of the writer, 



24 HOUSE AND HOME 

after meeting with sad reverses of fortune, went 
into a house where they expected to live eco- 
nomically until the business prospects of the 
husband should improve. After a brief and 
very expensive experiment they found that the 
cellar heater consumed such an amount of fuel 
without warming the house, that they could not 
afford to use it. Consequently they were obliged 
to resort to stoves with all the increase of labor 
and extra trouble to keep clean that stoves cause. 
The heater in their cellar is always empty, cold, 
and absolutely useless. 

Before beginning to look at houses with a 
view either to renting or buying, decide upon the 
price that you can and will pay in rent, or for 
purchase. Keep the price ever in mind, that 
you may waste no time or strength in looking at 
houses above your limit — unless you have time 
and vitality to throw away. House-hunting is a 
laborious business and should not be entered into 
unadvisedly or lightly. Devote a notebook to 
it, in which you jot down every item that con- 
cerns the new home. On page i set the price. 
After that, in their order of importance, every- 
thing that you desire to find in the house that 
you will decide to take. Never go to look at a 
house without the notebook in your pocket. As 



CHOOSING A HOME 25 

you go about examining the building and the 
premises, keep the notebook open in your hand. 
When making your own memoranda before- 
hand, leave several blank pages between your 
notes regarding the requisites for the house. 
Then you can jot down the advantages and 
the disadvantages of houses that you visit during 
your quest. 

This plan will prevent your confusing one 
house with another, and will be less fatiguing 
than trying to remember too much in detail 
without the little memorandum book for refer- 
ences. It may also prevent some very decided 
differences of opinion between two or more who 
go house-hunting together. The little notebook 
will keep the peace w T hen everybody is tired and 
perhaps somewhat cross over the business. 

When the chief points of a house prove un- 
satisfactory it is wasteful to expend any further 
thought or strength upon it. It is safe to say 
that if you find a house with its roof in perfect 
order, its cellar dry and well-arranged with a 
cemented floor, and its plumbing equal to the 
severest test, you may reasonably expect to find 
the other departments well kept up in good re- 
pair. On the other hand, if any one, or all three, 
of those salient features should prove to be in 



26 HOUSE AND HOME 

bad condition, you will not be likely to find the 
house desirable or otherwise in repair. Never 
be misled by an attractive front and entrance. 
They often hide a multitude of defects. It is 
also well to bear in mind that furniture, pictures, 
and screens may be so arranged as to cover very 
unsightly and objectionable conditions. Above 
all, do not bind a bargain before you inform 
yourself regarding the healthfulness of the lo- 
cality. A friend of the writer lost a thousand 
dollars by deciding quickly upon a house that he, 
too late, discovered was not in a healthy neigh- 
borhood. He gave up the bargain and forfeited 
the sum that he had paid down before the deed 
was drawn up. 

When looking for a house take nothing for 
granted. Inspect, inspect, inspect every portion. 
Accept whatever the landlord or his agent may 
tell you about it with generous allowances of 
salt. Unremitting vigilance is the price of se- 
curing a house in good repair as well as of 
keeping it so. 

If possible, live for a year in a house that you 
think of purchasing. Know all about its ad- 
vantages and its disadvantages within doors, and 
also all about the neighborhood and the soil upon 
which it is built, whether wholesome or un- 



CHOOSING A HOME 27 

wholesome. There is nothing like occupying a 
house to disclose its characteristics and to un- 
cover very objectionable features that may easily 
be overlooked when you are going over it, espe- 
cially if it be occupied and furnished. 

Moving is hard and expensive, but better 
move twice than buy what you cannot readily 
sell without a great sacrifice. Remember that 
buying and renting are far easier than selling or 
subletting after the property is on your hands. 
The more anxious you are to be rid of it the 
harder will it be to find anyone who wants it at 
any price. 

Every reasonable person knows that a house 
which has not been just renovated will probably 
require some repairs. Painting, papering, wood- 
polishing and floor-staining, when necessary, can 
be done, with the cost estimated beforehand, if 
you buy, and allowance can be made for ex- 
pected expenses that will keep you within the 
purchase price that you feel you can afford to 
pay. If you are renting, that is the time to get 
from your landlord more repairs than he will 
be likely to make after you are living in the 
house. Therefore it is well to make all dis- 
coveries of necessary repairs while you are only 
a prospective tenant and the owner's anxiety to 



28 HOUSE AND HOME 

secure you makes him readily accede to your 
requests. The landlord of an empty house and 
the landlord when the tenant is in are about as 
different to the tenant asking for repairs as Dr. 
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

We have often heard it remarked: "You 
must build one house before you will know 
what to have and what to avoid." But that is 
practical experience dearly bought. It is wiser 
to think and plan, while asking questions of the 
experienced before making a beginning. 

Have a well-thought-out general plan of your 
own before consulting an architect. When you 
engage his services lead him, and do not be led 
away from what you really want for comfort 
by any suggestions of his, unless they are evi- 
dently better than your own ideas. 

The architect should catch your thought and 
draw the design to accord with what you tell 
him you must have in the new house. 

Be sure at the outset to give him a clear idea 
of what you desire and what you object to, and 
be careful to mention your special wishes and 
special objections before he draws any design 
whatever. By so doing you economize his time 
and keep down expenses. (Every addition or 
change will add to the cost of his work.) When 



CHOOSING A HOME 29 

the builder takes the contract the work should 
progress without interruption. Above all, make 
no changes after the contract has been signed, 
for every change then will augment the con- 
tractor's charges. Not an extra window or 
door can you have cut without paying extra for 
it. No one can possibly estimate the final cost 
of a house when the plan is frequently changed 
during the process of building. 



u 



CHAPTER TWO 



PACKING TO MOVE 



Old adage. Begin in time. Ample packing material. An art 

worth cultivating. Exclusiveness the law of good packing. 

Self-respect should govern moving out. 



XJ 



Mf S Y T use d t0 be said that " three 
Stm removals were equal to one 

£m && 3» fire." This may still be true 
dfifflftg §yj wf m cases where those who su- 
g^T^^jf *j perintend the business do not 

Tft " know how to guard against 

damage. Probably in such instances in less than 
three moves more irreparable mischief might be 
done than in one ordinary fire. A fire has at 
least two advantages over a clumsy move: First, 
if one is well insured things can be replaced, 
when they are damaged, by new; next, it is less 
trying to have one's belongings destroyed alto- 
gether than to have them marred, but still too 
useful to be cast aside. Almost anyone would 
rather have chinaware broken outright than 

30 



PACKING TO MOVE 



cracked or nicked, if it must remain to be used, 
while ever an offense to the eye. 

In old times before apartment houses had be- 
come as common in America as they are abroad 
people, even when they only rented their homes, 
lived longer in one house than they do now in 
those that they own. Moving appears to be the 
fashion, and many families seem to own their 
homes just for the fun of leaving them. For- 
merly those who were addicted to frequent mov- 
ing laid themselves open to the suspicion of 
being either undesirable tenants or neighbors, 
or else of not paying their rent. The 1st of 
May was the common moving day for the un- 
fortunates doomed to move, and people of the 
rolling-stone class often were obliged to go 
into a house from which the previous tenant was 
just moving out. Then, indeed, was pandemon- 
ium let loose, and no wonder the proverb about 
three removes came to be often quoted. But 
nowadays these conditions are less common, and 
moving, when it takes place, can be done decently 
and in order, if people choose to be methodical 
about it. 

There are so many intermediate states that 
can be adopted for a while, if people wish to 
make moving as easy as possible. Boarding, 



32 HOUSE AND HOME 

traveling, or a hired apartment bridge over the 
time between leaving one house and getting the 
next into living condition and also afford the 
tired housewife a chance to recuperate her forces 
before entering upon the campaign of settling new 
quarters. This also gives time for having all nec- 
essary repairs done before furnishing or occupying 
a new home. Meanwhile furniture can be stored 
until its next abiding place is all ready for it. The 
main object is to avoid the confusion commonly 
attending a move, to vacate before the next ten- 
ant arrives, and not to move into the next home 
until it is clean and ready for furnishing. By 
this management, and with good packing, the 
formidable task of moving a family and all 
their belongings may be accomplished with some 
degree of gratification and comparatively little 
strain. But good packing, which means abso- 
lutely safe conditions during transit of things 
packed, is one sine qua non for satisfactory mov- 
ing. In the first place, then, everything that is 
not immediately necessary for the comfort of 
the family should be packed gradually weeks in 
advance of the exodus, so that towards the last 
nothing will remain but the heavy furniture 
and a small amount of table furniture needed up 
to the last. In the unpacking it is well to note 



PACKING TO MOVE 33 

that the order will be reversed, because all things 
packed last will be needed first. They should 
be marked accordingly. In almost all houses 
there are countless things that people can easily 
do without. All of these, of course, come first 
in the order of packing. Pictures and all orna- 
ments should be boxed some time before the gen- 
eral move. As these things demand care and 
take considerable time, if they are properly 
guarded against damage during transit, they 
should be made ready when everyone is more 
at leisure than they can possibly be later. Next 
in order of packing come all the best china and 
glassware not in daily use, and then whatever 
kitchen utensils can be spared. Every article 
ought to be thoroughly scoured and cleansed 
and perfectly dry before being packed. It is a 
good plan to get a large sugar barrel early and 
place it convenient to the kitchen, and another of 
excelsior and plenty of strong wrapping paper. 
With these at hand whoever is in the kitchen 
can gradually clean and pack articles that can 
easily be spared, a few at a time, until none re- 
main but those which are in constant use. This 
plan insures clean utensils when unpacking is 
done, and makes the work very easy and thorough. 
In hurried packing there is not sufficient time 



34 HOUSE AND HOME 

for carefulness, and the result is just what one 
ought to expect — damage. 

Someone may exclaim: But how forlorn and 
bare the house will look if we begin so early! 
Unless people can afford to employ expert pack- 
ers to come in at the last moment and do every- 
thing at once this is the only sure way of having 
one's things carefully packed without overbur- 
dening and overfatiguing someone in the family. 
Better have a bare-looking house for a few weeks 
before leaving than to have the mother or any 
member of the family tired out because too much 
work is left to be crowded into a few days. The 
important thing is to be assured that there will 
be nothing left for the last that can be done 
earlier. With all the forethought and planning 
that an experienced person can have and do, 
moving is arduous and a tremendous tax upon 
those upon whom the burden falls most heavily. 

From start to finish keep on hand a full supply 
of tags for marking every piece and parcel. The 
tags should be legibly written with the destined 
place of each thing, and each should be securely 
tied or tacked on with a view to rough usage in 
transit. All furniture going in vans, or not 
boxed, can be tagged long before any packing is 
done. 



PACKING TO MOVE 35 

Barrels are excellent for almost all packing 
purposes, and they are easy to get, safe and excel- 
lent for table ware, ornaments, and whatever is 
not too large for them. They hold considerable, 
are easily handled by porters, cheaper and safer to 
move than heavy boxes. 

Delicate crystal ware carefully packed in a 
barrel can be sent from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
cific coast intact. Nothing will be cracked on 
the way unless the barrel itself should be broken, 
which is unlikely without a railroad accident. 
Of course, there must be no stinting of the ex- 
celsior. Safe and orderly packing insures peace- 
ful orderly unpacking, and tends to promote 
general good humor. Whoever has seen the 
faces of people when, upon opening badly packed 
goods, they found some of their best belongings 
broken, will appreciate skillful packing and 
realize that any other sort is time and material, 
as well as transportation, wasted. 

The packer should always take a list of all 
things stowed away. Packages and lists should 
be numbered alike. This method simplifies un- 
packing and settling because it prevents anything 
from being opened by mistake too soon and saves 
things from lying about in danger of damage 
before a suitable place can be prepared for them. 



36 HOUSE AND HOME 

It also expedites the finding of whatever may be 
needed at once. 

Every memorandum taken should be put into 
one notebook devoted to that purpose, and so 
inscribed on the cover that anyone wishing infor- 
mation regarding the whereabouts of an article 
needed can easily recognize the book which, how- 
ever, ought to be in safe keeping while at the 
same time easy to get at for reference, by trust- 
worthy persons. It is some trouble to keep these 
strict memoranda, but it pays, as all who make a 
practice of so doing will testify; it also spares 
responsible people from unnecessary anxiety 
about things that have not turned up, because 
immediate recourse to the memoranda informs 
one of the exact package which contains them. 
No matter how carefully you put things up, if 
you forget all about where they are, there will be 
tiresome worry and lengthy searching to find 
them. Once upon a time a lady had suddenly 
put into her care a lot of valuable jewelry be- 
longing to a young girl, who had gone to Europe 
and left it behind in a jewel box on her dressing 
bureau. The lady was full of crowding cares, 
and had countless things to attend to. Without 
making any memorandum of it she put the jew- 
elry very carefully in one corner of a large box 



PACKING TO MOVE 37 

of silver that was sent to the country home of the 
owner of the trinkets. It so happened that the 
silver was some that was never used except when 
a very large evening entertainment was given by 
the mother of the young girl. As a matter of 
course, that box was sent to a closet where glass 
and china for extra-large evening entertainments 
were kept. The little girl, upon her return from 
abroad, naturally inquired for the jewelry. After 
searching every box of valuables in vain the lady, 
while quite certain that the things were safe 
and would turn up some time, gave up looking, 
but did not give up racking her brain for some 
clew to the mystery. No memorandum had she 
made of that particular parcel's whereabouts. 
After several devitalizing days of hunting and 
puzzling over the matter, all at once flashed into 
her mind the strong oak box out of sight and, 
until then, out of mind. Without delay she sped 
away upstairs to the closet and, unlocking the 
box, there, to her own immense relief, beheld the 
package; but the point is, if, at the time of taking 
it in charge, she had promptly made a note of 
it, she would have spared herself mental wear 
as well as much loss of time that was spent in 
searching more than once in places where the 
missing baubles were not. Therefore, all the 



38 HOUSE AND HOME 

way long we chant the praises of a faithfully 
kept book of remembrance in moving times, and 
also in the more quiet housekeeping days after 
the home is in running order. The fact is that 
no mind should be charged with a lot of things 
to be remembered that can just as well be re- 
called, when needed, by reference to memoranda, 
since there is so much valuable knowledge which 
can only be acquired by exercise of the memory. 
The first are only for temporary use and may 
then be dismissed from one's thought, but the 
other is forever increasing and useful all the 
time. Therefore, the mind and memory should 
be devoted to storing up what is worth keeping 
and thinking about, not spent on comparatively 
trivial matters. It is something of an effort, and 
worth cultivating, to know how to distinguish 
beween what we should memorize and what is 
only worthy of perishable paper. 

When packing begins in good earnest there 
should be plenty of tissue paper and excelsior on 
hand for that work. Any economy in the use 
of soft packing stuff usually eventuates in dire 
extravagance in the way of destruction and woe- 
ful disappointment when unpacking is done. 
P'ar better is it to use too much than too little 
protection against breakage. Begin always with 



PACKING TO MOVE 39 

a thick bed of excelsior at the bottom, and be 
sure that every breakable article has a bed of its 
own and touches nothing else. Exclusiveness is 
the law of all safe packing. Each thing should 
be immovable, when once it is packed, no matter 
how roughly the barrel may be handled by 
porters or expressmen. Everything should be 
wrapped in tissue paper before it is laid in the 
excelsior. China and glass, indeed all delicate 
or brittle things, should be packed by themselves 
in one case, and strong articles by them- 
selves. 

Dainty bedroom belongings ought to be put up 
in pasteboard boxes — everything first nicely 
wrapped in white tissue paper — each box marked 
for the owner's next room in the new home. 
Then, no matter who opens and puts things in 
order, all will find their own belongings 
waiting for them instead of having to begin an 
immediate rearrangement of misplaced pin- 
cushions, bureau covers, and the other various 
toilet articles of different members of the fam- 
ily. " Oh, what a lot of trouble! " I hear some- 
one exclaim. Well, just bear in mind that you 
will escape much more trouble in settling; be- 
sides, those who do not enjoy and cultivate or- 
derly methods will not be happy in heaven, as 



40 HOUSE AND HOME 

order is the first law of the kingdom of har- 
mony. 

Kitchen utensils ought to be wrapped in very 
strong paper before they are packed. Paper 
wrappers prevent the excelsior from getting into 
things and from being scattered at unpacking 
times. Every utensil before it is put up should 
be scrupulously cleaned for the sake of having 
it ready for use as soon as unpacked and because, 
if stowed away from the air for a time when not 
immaculately clean, it will be unpleasant when it 
does come forth into the light and air, and doubly 
hard to cleanse after being packed. 

Whenever and wherever packing may be done 
it saves a great deal of trouble to have a large 
square of unbleached muslin first spread down 
and all the barrels and packing stuff kept upon 
it. Then, when the work is over, the four corners 
of the muslin should be brought to the center 
and everything taken up at once without any 
sweeping before the waste material is sent to the 
trash heap. There is neither reason nor excuse 
for reckless untidiness while packing is going on or 
after it is done. This applies to packing of every 
sort. The appearance of some rooms after the 
last occupant has packed one trunk and departed 
indicates the mad confusion which would char- 



PACKING TO MOVE 41 

acterize a house just vacated by one so disorderly. 
If conscience and a decent consideration for 
others are not sufficiently influential, one would 
suppose that self-respect would govern the mov- 
ing out as much as personal comfort and conven- 
ience. It is retributive justice beautifully meted 
out when those who have left a house strewn 
with rubbish are obliged to clean out a like con- 
dition from the house into which they are 
moving. 

In packing mattresses and pillows they should 
be carefully guarded against possible soil. They 
are difficult to clean and cannot be easily spared 
long enough for that to be done. They ought 
to be first sewed up in strong muslin, then 
wrapped and firmly tied in heavy paper. This 
should be done whether they are boxed or 
go in vans. One can hardly lay too much em- 
phasis upon the care that should always be given 
to everything pertaining to beds. These should 
also be marked with tags fastened securely. One 
side of the tags should be legibly inscribed with 
the name of the proprietor and the address of 
the new house ; the other with the room to which 
they belong. Painstaking marking insures com- 
paratively easy settling and avoids extra lifting 
and moving. 



42 HOUSE AND HOME 

The muslin covers should be left on all mat- 
tresses until the house is in order. No nice 
housekeeper allows mattresses to be exposed to 
dust or soil of any sort, either in moving or in 
housekeeping times. 



XJ CHAPTER THREE U 



CLEANING AND SETTLING A HOUSE 

Always use a notebook with orderly programme. Get rid of work- 
men before cleaning. Have household tools and utensils ready 
in advance of work. Dustpan and whisk. 

"'' ' ^llY 3 HEN settling a new house with 

\\/lW/1 a ^ i ts furnishings, also new, an 

\ Jk /\ inexperienced housewife may 

^M \ spare herself unnecessary worry 

^» and fatigue by thoughtfully 

planning the entire business from start to 
finish. Of course, emergencies may arise com- 
pelling occasional departure from the original 
outline; nevertheless, the settling will go for- 
ward more rapidly and with few T er mishaps if 
the superintendent have ever on hand for refer- 
ence a well-thought out and orderly programme 
of all the work to be done. A good housewife 
is never without her notebook in which she 
jots down ideas that will further the work of 
the house settling and housekeeping, as they 
occur to her, or that she gets from outside sources. 

43 



44 HOUSE AND HOME 

A well-kept note book proves an energy-con- 
server, a time-saver, and a peace-preserver to 
many besides the one who keeps it. 

When the mind is crowded with unwonted 
cares and thoughts, even an ordinarily sound 
sleeper may become wakeful just at the time 
when most needing rest. Then the brain teems 
with things to be remembered and fear of for- 
getting makes one broad awake. A simple prac- 
tice soon overcomes that sort of insomnia. Every 
night before going to bed have a candle and 
matches with pad and pencil on a table beside the 
bed. Every time you wake with a good idea, 
or a thought of something that must be remem- 
bered, light the candle and write it down. This 
relieves the mind and you can go to sleep feeling 
assured that you have captured, and can have, 
the thought when you waken in the morning to 
transfer to the invaluable notebook. Never 
crowd your notebook's pages. Space everything 
so that when looking for a memorandum your 
eye will quickly light upon it. A closely written 
notebook is better than none at all, but it often 
taxes one's time and patience sorely. Before 
every memorandum write in large letters one 
word indicative of the subject of the memoran- 
dum. The nocturnal notes may be very brief, 



CLEANING AND SETTLING 45 

even consisting of but one word as a reminder, 
because the thought can be transferred to the 
notebook more fully by daylight. In periods 
of unusual strain, during night hours especially, 
one's powers of self-control are tested severely, 
but the plan just given has so often helped 
the writer at times of immense responsibility 
it is now offered with the hope that it may prove 
equally efficacious to whoever may be led to make 
trial of it. Seeking sleep is futile while the mind 
is overweighted, or given to sudden flashes of 
valuable ideas which one fears to lose by falling 
asleep — therefore the necessity for unburden- 
ing an overcrowded and consequently chaotic 
brain. 

When about to settle in a new house, or one 
already vacated where you have full possession, 
a supply of fuel should be laid in at the earliest 
opportunity that there may be no lack of hot 
water to delay cleaning or to prevent the workers 
being refreshed by the cup that cheers without 
inebriating. 

Working women generally are not well 
nourished. They live on very light food as a 
rule and need to be looked after when they are 
working hard at house-cleaning. They should 
be provided with a hot lunch and have at mid- 



46 HOUSE AND HOME 

morning and mid-afternoon a little light refresh- 
ment. Most of them are satisfied with a cup of 
tea and bread and butter at these times. No one 
ever lost anything by considering the comfort of 
employees. It is only a humane duty that 
should require no urging for its performance. 

In advance of any cleaning, if possible, have all 
workmen out of the house unless you are quite 
willing to pay to have places cleaned several 
times over before you begin to live in your new 
home. The average mechanic is a past master 
at making a mess wherever he goes. The work 
that he causes others who clean up after him is 
often more than the work that he is hired to 
do. 

Permit no furniture to be delivered until the 
house is spick and span clean and all ready for it. 
Then as things arrive they can be permanently 
placed. This method prevents repeated cleaning 
and repeated moving of furniture before it is 
finally placed where it belongs. It is therefore 
labor- and expense-saving, and at the same time 
prevents damage which frequent moving is apt 
to cause. Above all never leave anything for 
mechanics to push out of their way when they are 
at work, for they are no respecters of any polish 
that they do not put on themselves, and seldom 



CLEANING AND SETTLING 47 



think of washing their hands before taking hold 
of anything that hinders their progress, be it ever 
so delicate. Moreover the best things are none 
too good — the mechanic seems to think — for his 
tools to rest upon. 

Two stepladders — one high, one of medium 
size — should be on hand when the work begins, 
also brooms, dustpans, long-handle floor brushes, 
whisk brooms, a pointed hairbrush, such as 
painters use for corners, plenty of soft cloths, 
cheese-cloth dusters, strong sponges, soap, sapolio, 
washing soda, household ammonia, chloride of 
lime, concentrated lye, pulverized borax, ham- 
mers (large and small), a screw-driver, tack 
lifter, and gimlet. Whoever requires thorough 
cleaning must supply the appliances and im- 
plements customarily used to expedite work. 
There should be also three or four large squares 
of double unbleached muslin — the widest that 
comes — for coverings and to spread down when 
unpacking is to be done. A good manager has 
also plenty of calico sweeping covers ready to 
protect furniture unexpectedly exposed and in 
danger of damage. Besides these there should be 
a supply of strong heavy paper in rolls, soft tissue 
paper, and old newspapers galore. It is very im- 
portant to study to avoid unnecessary labor. For 



48 HOUSE AND HOME 

this object these latter things are urgently recom- 
mended for house-cleaning times. 

It economizes time, labor, strength, and money 
to be all ready with suitable working tools and 
etcs. for cleaning before anything is called for. 
There will be no excuse for idle hands if no one 
has to wait while you send out for something 
that has been forgotten or overlooked. 

If you are so unfortunate as to be obliged to 
move in before the mechanics have finished their 
work and departed, give them a wide berth as 
far as cleaning is concerned and do none in their 
vicinity until they and their tools are gone for 
good. 

Getting what is called the big dirt out should 
begin at the top of the house and progress, floor 
by floor and stairway by stairway, as you go 
down. 

The first sweeping should be done with a wet 
broom to control the dust, and the water used for 
dampening the broom ought to be frequently 
changed. The closet of each room should be 
swept out and the shelves wiped first with a damp 
then with a dry cloth. 

The secret of rapid cleaning is not to allow 
dust or trash to spread again or be scattered while 
the work proceeds. In a room of ordinary size 



CLEANING AND SETTLING 49 

the sweepings should be taken up at least five 
times: viz., at the four corners and in the 
middle of each room. Any common box, of light 
weight, answers this purpose. Each sweeper 
should have one beside her. If no appropriate 
box can be had large newspapers, folded and 
pinned to form bags, are useful. They have one 
advantage because, when filled, they can be tied 
up firmly and sent directly to the trash-can with- 
out being emptied. This keeps undesirable stuff 
from being scattered below or outside when the 
garbage collector takes it away. 

After the first sweeping is done the walls, ceil- 
ings, door, and window-tops should be freed from 
dust. For walls and ceilings use a broom cov- 
ered with a very clean white canton flannel bag 
or else a piece of canton flannel pinned firmly 
over it. Always use white cloths or bags so that 
they will show the first soil. Change them fre- 
quently, because using a dusty cloth defeats the 
object to be attained — cleanliness. By manage- 
ment this work may be done with a moderate 
supply of broom covers. The soiled covers can 
be left to soak in a tub of boraxed water and 
occasionally washed out and hung to dry while 
the clean ones are in use. By this method there 
will always be clean dry covers ready to take the 



5o HOUSE AND HOME 

places of soiled ones. The door and window- 
tops should be very carefully wiped with a damp 
cloth and a dustpan held under to catch any 
dust that might otherwise escape the cloth and 
fall into the room. Window-frames should be 
wiped in the same way before any glass is washed. 
When once the entire house has been gone over 
in this way the formidable dirt will be outside 
and people can then go about without ruining 
their clothes. Unmethodical, heedless cleaning, 
so-called, has spoiled the clothes and the disposi- 
tions of a good many people. Before the shade- 
hangers arrive all windows should be washed and 
polished, and the window sills and ledges sponged 
with clean water. This warning may seem 
superfluous to some of my readers, but I have 
seen beautiful sash-curtains of delicate silk put 
up over windows that had afterwards to be 
washed, for the first time, in a new house. This 
made handling the curtains and their removal 
immediately necessary before the window-clean- 
ing. No nice manager would allow such topsy- 
turvy doings if given time to plan the order of 
the furnishing. 

After the important preliminaries have been 
attended to, all regular and lighter cleaning can 
be pushed forward, according to the wishes and 



CLEANING AND SETTLING 51 

the convenience of the housewife and the special 
needs of the expected family. 

When giving floors their second cleaning wet 
newspapers will be found very good substitutes 
for cloths or mops. They are far less trouble 
because they can be frequently changed and 
thrown away, when soiled, whereas cloths and 
mops add to the labor because they take extra 
time for wringing out and washing them clean. 
But the water should be changed often, although 
not so often as when a cloth or mop is used. The 
woman who has not learned the advantage of 
keeping clean water in her pail has not been 
taught the first principles of thorough cleaning. 
She smears everything that her cloth touches and 
cleans nothing. Whoever experiments with wet 
paper will not want to handle a mop again for 
any lengthy or rough cleaning. The third and 
final floor cleaning should be done with a scrub- 
bing brush, soap, and warm water. The brush 
should be followed by a soft cloth wrung out of 
clear water, to wash away all the soap suds, and 
to hasten the drying. 

Wherever there are spots that do not yield 
easily to the brush they can usually be removed 
by a strong solution of soda in hot water. This 
should be poured on them and left with cloths or 



52 HOUSE AND HOME 

paper, also wet in the same solution, lying upon 
the places. After the cleaner portions of a floor 
have been scrubbed the spots can be done last of 
all. When this treatment fails the last resort is 
the carpenter's plane, although pulverized pumice 
sometimes serves the purpose. 

In cold or damp weather there should be some 
sort of heating apparatus wherever floors are 
being washed, to dry the atmosphere an/1 hasten 
the work. No floor covering should be laid until 
everything is perfectly dry. People would not. 
get colds when moving into new quarters if they 
would observe ordinary precautions and proceed 
in a common-sense way instead of, as too often is 
the case, rushing and risking everything in a sort 
of mad haste to get " moved in," as it is called. 

A house cleaned according to the order and 
methods here given will be dry and will not show 
much dust accumulation, from the inside, for 
some time. Its atmosphere will be pure and de- 
lightful, and there will be no old dust flying 
about to distress sensitive lungs and offend a neat 
housewife. Whoever has been in the midst of, 
or witnessed, helter-skelter workers who raised 
a choking dust wherever they went with dry 
brooms and overloaded dustpans, will realize 
the advantage of a method which tends to con- 



CLEANING AND SETTLING 53 

trol dust while really removing it. And who- 
ever has been compelled to go about in the midst 
of flying dust and general confusion with skirts 
held up, head covered, and elbows held close to 
avoid soil — in a house supposedly being cleaned — 
will appreciate genuine cleaning, which domi- 
nates while removing whatever is objectionable 
and maintains order at every step of the busi- 
ness. 

Until a house is entirely settled, every entrance 
should have a mat outside and a piece of carpet 
or strong paper inside each door. Strong paper 
should be laid over all clean or polished floors 
wherever people are likely to tread. All of these 
should be carefully lifted every evening and the 
day's dust, collected thereupon, shaken outside. 
Thoughtless, careless people should be reminded 
by legibly written notices, posted in full sight, 
that the doormats are there for their use and the 
protection of the house. Posted notices are quiet, 
impersonal reminders that offend no one and 
sometimes spare the voice and the feelings of the 
housewife. In two minutes one reckless person 
can undo the cleaning of half a day. 

Had I the versifier's gift, I would sing the 
song of the burnt-match plague. Burnt matches 
thrown about, or left on window-sills, mantels, 



54 HOUSE AND HOME 

or anywhere but in suitable receptacles, are un- 
tidy and show unpardonable negligence on the 
part of those who leave them. Nice housewives 
permit nothing of the kind in their domains. 
One of the first of the furnishings in every part 
of a house should be match-safes and receivers for 
burnt matches. These not only promote tidiness, 
but, if used by everybody, they prevent an alarm 
of fire or a conflagration. Probably the ma- 
jority of fires are caused by people who throw 
matches down heedless of the disorder caused by 
their lying about and the risk, always possible, of 
their not being extinguished. Whether the spark 
be dead or alive, there is no excuse for making a 
tidy place untidy, or an untidy place more untidy, 
by negligently dropping a match without even 
looking to see if there be a place provided for it. 
Burnt matches are not ornamental. They do 
not give an air of refinement to a house when 
they adorn the front steps or stone window sills, 
albeit in those places they may be harmless. 

Door-cleaning should be left until the last be- 
because, during the general settling, there is so 
much going in and out by people who are apt to 
leave generous finger-prints on whatever door 
they open or close. The most conspicuous part of 
the door is about the knob, and cleaning that part 



CLEANING AND SETTLING 55 

often is apt to deface the paint or polish. It is a 
good plan to protect the most exposed portion by 
fitting a piece of strong paper around the knob 
and fastening it temporarily with a little paste 
that will wash off easily and not injure the wood- 
work. 

All floor-polishing or floor-staining should be 
left until the very last settling is done and the 
house has ceased to be a highway of affairs for all 
sorts and conditions of men and women, either 
working or delivering goods. 

Unless the house be entirely new, before hav- 
ing any beds brought in, make a thorough ex- 
amination of the wood-work, the plaster, and the 
paper to discover if vermin of any sort have 
lodged there. 

This is a case where an ounce of prevention 
will be found equal to a ton of cure. Destroy 
every sign and vestige of any objectionable 
insects before it is possible for them to get 
into beds or any furniture. Nothing is a more 
efficacious vermin-destroyer than fumigation done 
w r ith a sulphur candle. This is very easy in an 
empty house, but it can be done at any time — 
along with proper precautionary measures. In 
the closing chapter of miscellaneous hints for 
housewives, will be found directions for this 



56 HOUSE AND HOME 

fumigation. Nothing can live where it is prop- 
erly done. 

After a house is thoroughly clean and ready 
for its furniture each article, as it arrives, should, 
if possible, be taken by the men who deliver it 
directly to its destined place. When this plan is 
followed a house can be put in order much sooner, 
and with far less labor and expense, than if those 
who deliver the furniture are allowed to set 
articles down in halls or rooms from which they 
must, sooner or later, be removed. Whenever 
there is doubt about placing things have them 
put as near as possible to the spot which they will 
probably occupy or on the floor, at least, where 
they belong as indicated by their tags. 

When carefully packed goods are about to be 
unpacked a large square of the unbleached mus- 
lin, referred to earlier in this chapter, will come 
into service. It should be spread down in a 
vacant room with empty barrels at hand to re- 
ceive the excelsior and all the packing stuff. 
With the barrel or box to be unpacked in the 
middle of the cloth, you can guard against letting 
the excelsior get scattered. To prevent this the 
corners and sides of the muslin should be often 
lifted and every bit of the excelsior shaken well 
toward the middle. Each barrel, when filled, 



CLEANING AND SETTLING 57 

should be sent below, either to the trash place in 
the cellar or else, if a thrifty housewife wishes it 
kept for kindling, it ought to be snugly stowed 
where it can be reached easily, but not allowed 
to litter the cellar or be too convenient for reck- 
less ones who drop matches about broadcast. 
(The cellar of a good housekeeper is kept in 
order; sloveliness is not tolerated there any sooner 
than in the other parts of the house.) Without 
these precautions every whiff of air and every 
person passing to and fro will waft bits of ex- 
celsior upstairs and downstairs and in the lady's 
chamber, to lodge in corners, on furniture, and in 
every conceivable place as sempiternal tokens of 
the unpacking. Many successive sweepings will 
be required to make the house tidy, whereas an 
orderly method of unpacking will effectually keep 
the packing stuff within bounds. 

From start to finish, in house-settling as well 
as ever afterwards, a dustpan and whisk broom 
should be kept on every floor ready for use. The 
house where the pan and brush are promptly used 
for keeping clean will not need to be swept all 
over half so often as one where everything is left 
for " sweeping day." A good old housekeeper 
used to say: " I'd rather have one keep clean than 
ever so many cleanings." That is the secret. 



58 HOUSE AND HOME 

Never allow things to be topsy-turvy while you 
are settling or at any time afterwards. This ad- 
vice belongs under the head of general housekeep- 
ing as much as it does to the period of settling. 

During settling all pretty, decorative things 
should be left in their wrappings and in closets 
until they can be put out with safety. Bureau- 
covers, pincushions, splashers, sofa pillows, and 
other dainty articles should not be exposed until 
the finishing touches are being given everywhere 
in the house. 

In hiring cleaners it is well to realize that it 
costs no more to have a strong force for a few 
days than it does to employ fewer and perhaps 
be short of service at critical times and very much 
longer getting in order. A competent super- 
intendent can keep several women busy. It is 
really less expensive to employ enough to push 
the cleaning and settling rapidly than it is to drag 
along for some time with only one or two. Be- 
side his, whenever there is lifting or moving of 
furniture to be done, there need be no delay about 
it waiting for men to be called in who must be 
paid for fifteen minutes' time, or even less, quite 
out of proportion to a whole day's work. Every- 
one knows that short jobs are costly and run up 
a formidable series of items in the accounts. 



CLEANING AND SETTLING 59 

Since the whole household, irrespective of age, 
sex, or class, depends upon the kitchen, it would 
seem superfluous to emphasize the necessity of 
providing it in season with all things requisite for 
preparing meals that whoever may have the cook- 
ing to do may be able to do it, unhampered by 
lack of utensils unpacked, clean and ready to her 
hand. Then, too, with a nice, orderly kitchen, if 
the dining room be not ready immediately to 
serve a meal, anyone can go there for a 
little lunch or a cup of tea. The mistress of the 
house herself, when in the midst of all the work 
and fatigued with her crowding cares, would 
often prefer to take some refreshment almost 
anywhere in her own house to going out. 

A nice clean kitchen, with a tidy cook serving 
everything piping hot, is far preferable to the 
average restaurant with strange people eating all 
about one and everything served lukewarm on 
cold dishes in a stifling atmosphere. In fact the 
only hot thing one gets in an average restaurant 
is the air that all are compelled to breathe. 

Supplies of milk, butter, eggs, and fruit, as well 
as groceries, ought to be provided early. In order 
to remember everything it is a good plan to take 
the grocer's catalogued list ; with that before you 
there will be little danger of overlooking or for- 



6o HOUSE AND HOME 

getting what you are in the habit of using on your 
table, but, in the beginning, avoid all foods that 
take much time in their preparation, for you want 
all the help you can have to get settled and in 
order. 



tT CHAPTER FOUR U 



FURNISHING THE HOME 

Avoid overfurnishing. The household toolbox. " Go slow, 

little boy " Drawing room of least importance. Good beds. 

No weighty bedclothes. Screens. Writing desks. 

u 

LMOST as much depends upon 
the good taste and judgment 
exercised as upon the amount 
of money expended, in furnish- 
ing a house. 

Usefulness and beauty 
should go hand in hand, as far as possi- 
ble, in making selections. But the useful 
should always lead the way. One thing 
to be studiously avoided is overfurnishing. No 
matter how ample the purse, the ruling idea 
should be to furnish with the fewest articles that 
are not absolutely of some use, and to shun 
crowding things, things to occupy space without 
making adequate return for so doing. A room 
encumbered with furniture and ornaments is in- 
elegant — far from pleasing and 3, weariness to 

61 




62 HOUSE AND HOME 

the eye that enjoys refined furnishing, which can 
only be reached by the observance of the eternal 
fitness of things. First, then, make usefulness the 
paramount point, and always as much beauty as is 
consistent with use. Last of all the ornamental, 
which, if wisely chosen, may be also useful in its 
own way because serving a purpose, since what- 
ever brightens life or cheers the work-a-day 
toilers is useful. 

Amongst immediately necessary and strictly 
useful purchases is a box of household tools. 
The woman who can handle a hammer, a screw- 
driver, and a gimlet expertly will often be inde- 
pendent of a skilled carpenter or an upholsterer 
when another person likewise situated, but unac- 
customed to those tools, would be helpless — com- 
pelled to wait and wait the pleasure and the 
leisure of a mechanic for trifling jobs to be done 
and then pay and pay, in inverse ratio to the char- 
acter of the work tardily accomplished, as well as 
the time taken to do it. Hiring small jobs done 
at odd times makes surprising inroads upon a 
family purse. If one is entirely dependent upon 
mechanics for everything done requiring their 
tools, the best way to keep the cost down to rea- 
sonable figures is to make a full list of what you 
expect done and give it to the man or his boss 



FURNISHING THE H OME 63 

in advance of the day that he is to come. Then 
he can come prepared with all that the work may 
require in the way of tools and other necessary 
et cetera. Everybody knows the facility with 
which mechanics lengthen a bill if they have to 
go after anything that is not ready to their hands. 
They never rupture any blood vessels by undue 
haste when upon those errands. 

The household tool box should be accom- 
panied by the stepladders, a few kitchen chairs 
and other things, already mentioned in a former 
chapter, for the use of the cleansers. The fur- 
niture can be selected as early as you choose, but 
with the understanding that the dealers hold it 
subject to your orders. The cleaner the house 
is before any furniture is permitted to arrive, the 
better for the furniture and the housewife's peace 
of mind. As circumstances alter cases and re- 
quirements, so, if anyone is to live in the house 
before it is ready, then a room must be thor- 
oughly cleaned immediately and made comfort- 
able for the expected occupant. If it can be one 
of the top-floor rooms so much the better for the 
order of the work as well as for the room itself. 
However, it should be locked all the time to keep 
it nice, for it is very difficult to prevent some 
misappropriation through the ignorance or care- 



64 HOUSE AND HOME 

lessness of irresponsible persons when there is a 
great deal going on. As the superintendent can- 
not be ubiquitous the only safeguard against a 
possible invasion of a place already cleaned and 
furnished is the lock and key. In familiar 
words: " Safe leave, safe find." But in selecting 
a room to be thus made ready be wise and beware 
that you do not choose one that any mechanic has 
yet to enter for w r ork of any sort, else all your 
cleaning and putting in order will be made null 
and void. None but those who have learned 
their ways through trying experiences can do jus- 
tice to this special setback in house-settling. I 
once found that the mechanics at work in a house 
— that had, supposedly, been prepared and 
shielded against their expected presence and van- 
dalism — had chosen the handsomest bedchamber 
for their lunching place. Without plates or 
napkins they sat upon a costly axminster 
carpet to eat and to drink. Doubtless they found 
the heavy velvet pile entirely comfortable. This 
is just one little experience of that sort amongst 
countless others of a similar nature closely re- 
lated to the subject now under our consideration. 
" Go slow, little boy," is a good motto for those 
who are furnishing a home and want to do the 
very best with a fixed sum of money. 



FURNISHING THE HOME 65 

Bear in mind that after you find and decide 
upon what you will get, buying is comparatively 
easy. The distinction between shopping — going 
from shop to shop, looking for what you want — 
and ordering after you have found the right 
thing, is immense. The one is tedious and weari- 
some in the extreme, the other quite the opposite. 
You will always find people ready to hasten your 
spending, but there are few who are capable of 
advising or assisting one to a wise selection 
amongst many desirable articles. There is noth- 
ing like a carefully prepared notebook, with lists 
and prices of articles to be purchased set down in 
black and white for constant reference. It will 
prove a safeguard against sudden and regrettable 
decisions that cannot be revoked, or, if revoked, 
that cost loss of valuable time, and money too, 
sometimes. 

When the mind is very full of crowding 
thoughts the memory is apt to become less trust- 
worthy, therefore, as you go about, keep careful 
memoranda — on blank pages left for that purpose 
between your lists — of whatever you are likely to 
buy and of all that you do decide upon. Inde- 
pendent pages should be devoted to each room 
and to every quarter of your house exclusive of 
every other portion — conspicuous en every page 



66 HOUSE AND HOME 

the amount to be laid out for the things there 
listed. 

If you want to enjoy and be restfully happy 
in the new home hold expenses within bounds, no 
matter what tempting things may entice you to 
go beyond your means, or how obliging the shop- 
keepers may show themselves ready to be about 
" giving credit." Remember that if you buy in 
haste you will have to repent at your leisure. 
Get only the indispensables at first, then you will 
have strength, time, and cash for getting extras 
later and by degrees, as you deem them requisite 
for the comfort and pleasure of the household. 

Even if the purse permits, it is wiser not to buy 
lavishly at the beginning. If all but necessaries 
are left until you are living in the house your 
furnishing will be characterized by greater indi- 
viduality, and you will be led to choose and get 
w T hat will be suitable to your house and your 
needs and therefore satisfy longer. 

Houses thus furnished are the most attractive 
because they express something above and beyond 
the cabinet-makers' work. It is the same differ- 
ence that exists between a library where all the 
books have been bought at once, according to the 
bookseller's catalogue, and the library that has 
been slowly accumulated by a lover of books. 



FURNISHING THE HOME 67 

There is a psychic quality and charm inexpres- 
sible, but felt, in the house that has been slowly 
furnished, and the library of the student and 
book-lover is entirely foreign to the others. 

The drawing room or parlor is least of all in 
importance and can easily be furnished at any 
later date. If left until last of all it gives a 
good-sized room, convenient to the front door, 
for receiving boxes and things that have to be 
unpacked, and spares other portions of the house 
— that have been cleaned — from the risk of being 
upset. It will prove also a fine storing place for 
anything arriving before its appointed time — if 
its place be not ready to receive it. 

Since good sleep and good food are all-impor- 
tant to the physical being and most of us are 
very dependent upon these for health and amia- 
bility, the need cannot be ignored with impunity. 
Therefore everything pertaining to the sleeping 
arrangements — bedsteads, mattresses, pillows, 
blankets, and quilts, and the bed linen — come 
under the head of early and very necessary fur- 
nishings. 

The kitchen appointments are equally im- 
portant. We all realize how very much the 
peace and comfort of a family depend upon com- 
fortably served, well-prepared meals. These may 



68 HOUSE AND HOME 

be assured along with simplicity and moderate ex- 
pense, but the housekeeping allowance must be 
in proportion to the demands of the family and 
the housewife capable, and unhampered in her 
management. 

In selecting bedsteads, mattresses, and pillows, 
those best in quality are the most economical in 
the end and always the most comfortable. 
Blankets and quilts should be chosen for light- 
ness and warmth. Heavy bedclothes are ex- 
hausting and partially undo the benefit to be 
gained by sleep; they are also objectionable be- 
cause they are not so warm as anything in wool 
of lighter weight. 

In these days of ever improving household 
hygiene single beds are becoming the rule for old 
and young alike. This wholesome practice com- 
mends itself, on every account, to all thoughtful 
people. Where two are obliged to occupy one 
bedchamber each one will be much more com- 
fortable, and less likely to disturb the other, when 
they sleep in separate beds. Above all young 
people and infants should never sleep with older 
persons or those who are strong and well with 
sickly or ailing ones. The loss of vitality to the 
young or well ones is altogether too serious to 
be ignored. Carelessness in these matters propa- 



FURNISHING THE HOME 69 



gates disease and is therefore unpardonable ex- 
cept in those who sin through ignorance. 

Single beds or spring cots are in every way 
more desirable than double bedsteads, however 
handsome they may be. If the double bedstead 
effect be preferred it can be had with two single 
beds. They come made with their head and 
foot boards shaped to simulate one bedstead when 
they are placed side by side. 

Every double room should be provided with a 
couple of portable screens for the convenience 
and partial privacy of both occupants. Screens 
are advantageous in very many ways, but during 
illness or even a slight indisposition they are 
indispensable. Through a skillful adjustment 
of screens the ailing one can be protected from 
a trying glare of light, from draughts, and 
can also have a sense of privacy impossible with- 
out them. At the same time persons who 
may be compelled to occupy that room need 
not be subjected to the annoyance of sitting 
in a darkened, insufficiently aired room for the 
sick one's sake. Of course everything that can 
be done to ameliorate an invalid's condition 
should be done, but, at the same time, healthy 
people are entitled to an opportunity to preserve 
their vigor, and that is impossible in a dark room 



7o HOUSE AND HOME 

or a close atmosphere. It is well also to remem- 
ber that darkness and poor ventilation retard, 
even prevent, recovery of health. All the weight 
of argument is in favor of screens and not one 
in opposition is worthy of attention. Even 
those who feel the necessity for close economy, 
by exercising a little ingenuity, can have home- 
made screens. A clothes-horse can be covered 
with cheap washable goods — cretonne, silkaline, 
denim, or cheese-cloth answer as coverings, and 
are easily put on and off. 

These are days of incessant traveling, packing, 
and unpacking. An inexpensive article that 
subtracts largely from the fatigue of packing is 
a strong low stand upon which the trunk or box 
to be packed is placed. This enables the packer 
to stand erect while doing the work. The stand 
may be as ornamental, as a hall wood-box, if 
economy of space be a necessity. Then it will 
serve other purposes when not needed for pack- 
ing. It can be made of hardwood polished — and 
have the top protected with strong paper w T hen it 
is to support a trunk — or it may be of stained or 
painted wood and made in the house at a very 
small cost. It should be just high enough to 
bring the trunk, when placed upon it, to a line 
preventing any necessity for the packer's stoop- 



FURNISHING THE HOME n 

ing. A cast-iron back, with a hinge in it, is as 
necessary to one who packs a trunk that stands 
upon the floor as it seemed to the author of " My 
Summer in a Garden " during his planting and 
weeding experiences. The trunk-stand, like 
many other inexpensive conveniences, recommends 
itself because it affords immunity from great fa- 
tigue to all who use it. As a rule costly articles 
do not contribute to the comfort of a family, on 
the contrary they are often burdensome, work- 
making, and useless. Simple, labor-saving things 
affording the greatest good to the greatest num- 
ber should be sought after and secured in one's 
general house furnishing. When selecting any 
furniture the first considerations should be dura- 
bility, combined with lightness and the absence of 
dust-harbors. A housewife who cannot command 
the services of a retinue of strong servants should 
never be tempted to buy any stuffed or carved 
furniture. Carved furniture is difficult to dust 
and takes an unusual amount of time, if kept 
clean. Unless stuffed furniture is often lifted 
into the open air and there well beaten it is im- 
possible to prevent it from accumulating dust, 
and that little bete noir of every careful house- 
keeper, the moth, is hard to banish if once it gets 
into stuffed furniture. There is little rest or 



72 HOUSE AND HOME 

peace for one who must perpetually contend with 
dust and moth when once either or both get 
established in furniture. But w T ith furniture of 
polished hardwood simply constructed there need 
be no anxiety and the work of dusting is minim- 
ized while it can be thoroughly done. If pre- 
ferred, or desired for variety, beautiful wicker 
furniture can be kept perfectly clean because it 
can be washed. Pillows and separate sofa 
cushions are easily aired and beaten outside with- 
out undue labor, and therefore better for the gen- 
eral health of a household than any undetachable 
appointments. Couches and sofas that any tyro 
can put together nicely and take apart easily are 
sensible, comfortable, and cleanly. 

For all ordinary purposes a low spring cot can 
be converted into an inviting lounge. It only 
requires a mattress firmly tied on with strong 
tapes, sewed at the corners and also all around at 
intervals — tapes enough to insure its immova- 
bility. There should also be a valance of the 
same material as the cover, likewise tied on. 
The mattress should be a little larger than the 
cot, then, when it is covered, it will hide all the 
metal of the cot. Everything should be made 
absolutely secure; the mattress itself so firmly 
tied there can be no possibility of an untidy ap- 



FURNISHING THE HOME 73 

pearance after anyone has been sitting or lying 
down upon it. 

The valance can be fastened to the mattress 
with large hooks and eyes. Whichever plan is 
preferred the valance should be cut deep enough 
to admit of its passing well in under the mattress 
to hide every sign of its fastenings. A couch of 
this sort, pushed into a corner, and piled with 
cushions along the back and at the head, is com- 
fortable and inexpensive. That it is home- 
made is no reason why it should be either ugly 
or untidy-looking. On the contrary, there is an 
opportunity for indulging one's taste and indi- 
viduality as well as exercising inventive genius. 
A capable family of ideas can improve upon these 
suggestions. The people who dare to experiment 
upon bright, new ideas, are our inventors, our 
artists, and our geniuses. Their houses are full 
of home-made interesting things. 

Every bedchamber large enough to hold both 
should have a couch as well as a bed. A couch 
tends to preserve the order of a bedroom in the 
daytime when a siesta is taken. The advantage 
of having a couch for that purpose is obvious be- 
cause it leaves the bed undisturbed. Those who 
take pride in having their rooms always orderly 
know that a bed slightly out of order mars the 



74 HOUSE AND HOME 

entire appearance of any room, however faultless 
it may be in every other respect. Lying down 
upon the outside of a bed soon soils the coverlet. 
But if one is obliged to use a bed for a short 
rest, the coverlet can be protected by having al- 
ways at hand a light spread of some sort, or even 
a sheet, to lay over the spread during a daytime 
sleep. It can be kept folded under the pillow 
when not in use. Another advantage about this 
is that it prevents increased laundry work, where 
many white bedspreads add to the heaviest por- 
tion of that work. 

Unless a house is to be supplied with two sets 
of window-shades, light-colored ones for winter 
and dark for summer use, it is wiser for all-the- 
year-round service to have them of dark green 
holland, because they protect the interior from 
the sun in hot weather and make an agreeable 
shade. In cool weather, when a house requires 
all the sunlight possible, the green shades can be 
rolled up to the top all day, as ordinary sash 
curtains and window hangings afford sufficient 
privacy during sunlit hours, and after the 
house is lighted in the evening the dark shades 
will answer all purposes of shielding those inside 
from outside gazers. 

Sash curtains of some washable goods requir- 



FURNISHING THE HOME 75 

ing no starch wear longer and are prettier than 
anything that must be stiffened and therefore 
would need frequent laundering of the most 
troublesome kind. Plain white scrim, hemmed, 
makes durable and pretty sash curtains. Fine 
cream-white cheese-cloth is cheaper, very dainty- 
looking, and also wears well. After serving a 
reasonable time as curtains it can be turned into 
dusters, straining cloths, and window polishers. 
Window hangings that exclude the light in cool 
weather are objectionable. Better have none at 
all than those that make gloomy rooms. Heavy 
stuff window hangings are neither artistic, health- 
ful, nor pleasant. They gather dust and, if of 
wool, harbor the earliest moths. Spotless win- 
dow hangings of seme sheer and inexpensive 
material are more satisfactory to a dainty but 
busy housewife. They add to the attractiveness 
of a room and screen the interior sufficiently, 
while admitting light and air. The way in which 
windows are dressed always manifests the good 
sense and the good taste of the one responsible 
for their hangings. 

In all house-furnishing a lover of absolute 
neatness never selects anything " because it will 
not show dirt." On the contrary, the preference 
will always be given to things that do show when 



76 HOUSE AND HOME 

they need cleaning. Then it will not be over- 
looked, nor will anything be allowed to get very 
dirty. Assuredly this makes a nice use of things 
imperative, but that should be a part of every- 
body's education ; when not learned early in life, 
it is yet never too late to mend uncleanly or 
careless ways. Carpets, rugs, and all floor cov- 
erings that show every little speck are the most 
sanitary of all, if for no other reason they should 
be chosen because the cleaner the house the more 
wholesome it will be, and nothing can excuse the 
fact of hidden dirt, which always in time invites 
or breeds disease. It costs a little more vigilance 
and faithful daily cleaning to keep a house thus 
furnished looking clean, but it costs less in the 
long run than where dirt becomes established be- 
cause invisible. Visible or invisible, it is dirt all 
the same. Seen or unseen, it is the indirect cause 
of visible doctor's and drug bills that nobody en- 
joys seeing or paying. Immaculate neatness is 
the truest economy and preserves the household 
goods for a longer time. It is not use and clean- 
ing (as some would have us believe) that wear 
things out, but abuse, and soil ingrained, make 
them useless, worthless, and offensive. 

Everyone, old and young, who can write 
should possess a desk. They are so useful and so 



FURNISHING THE HOME 77 

inexpensive that there is no excuse for not pro- 
viding each room with one. Desks promote 
orderly habits, for where each member of a house- 
hold has one under lock and key, the probability 
is that individual belongings in the writing line 
will be kept in better order than they could be 
without the desk conveniences. Those who are 
not accustomed to the boundaries of a desk are 
apt to acquire careless ways, just for lack of a 
suitable place for their stationery and general 
correspondence. The school boy and girl early 
accustomed to a private desk, with a trash basket 
under or beside it, will hardly need to be told to 
use both, the advantage to themselves will be so 
obvious. Besides the desk every room should 
have some arrangement for holding books— a 
small bookcase, a revolving stand, or a hanging 
set of shelves. Wherever it is possible the books 
should be inclosed or have curtains sliding on 
rods to protect them. Dusty books are vexatious 
and soon grow shabby. A little inexpensive orna- 
mental feather duster always hanging beside the 
shelves is the most desirable and only suitable 
thing for removing dust from books, because it 
will not deface them. Feather dusters, as a rule, 
are objectionable anywhere about a house because 
so few people seem to know how and when they 



78 HOUSE AND HOME 

should be used. For general dusting they are 
worse than useless, like many serviceable articles 
they may be made nuisances by misuse, but every 
house needs one very large feather duster with a 
long handle for cornices and pictures hanging too 
high to be reached with a cloth. And this duster 
needs washing regularly and drying in the open 
air, if it is to serve its purpose and not become a 
dust disseminator. 

Individual taste and notions will, of neces- 
sity, rule all house-furnishing. The only thing 
one can do for others is to touch upon general and 
salient points and make suggestions, with the hope 
of reaching and helping any who are on the look- 
out for hints upon the subject. 



V CHAPTER FIVE U 



BEDCHAMBERS 

Privacy for all desirables Individual furniture for double rooms. 

Importance of screens. Simple furniture easily kept clean. 

Objectionable articles. No dark halls. Plants. 

u 

LTHOUGH not always possible, 
it is very desirable that everyone 
should have a separate room 
.with absolute privacy at times 
when it is wished for. People 
are better for being alone with their own 
thoughts sometimes and thus enabled to shake 
off the hypnotic effect of the suggestion, conscious 
or unconscious, of others to which all of us 
are exposed through association. Only by get- 
ting away from people — however dear they 
may be — can one recover lost equilibrium and 
reassert one's own individuality. Therefore 
provision should always be made whereby those 
who are compelled to room together may secure 
at least some degree of privacy every day. Very 
young people are gregarious in their taste and do 

79 




80 HOUSE AND HOME 

not as a rule mind rooming together, but all, as 
they grow older, realize the comfort and the ad- 
vantage of some assured privacy. Young per- 
sons ought not to be compelled to room with their 
elders, because the tastes and inclinations of older 
people are so different from those of their juniors 
that the younger ones disturb their elders and the 
elder are uncongenial to the younger; as a 
natural result they act and react unfavorably 
upon each other. 

A double room should be furnished with two 
of everything in the way of important bedroom 
furniture, each occupant having an individual 
bed, dressing bureau, washstand, writing desk or 
table, and screen of light weight to be used 
around the washstand, bed, or desk, as the owner 
may choose. In a room thus furnished two rea- 
sonable people can get along usually without seri- 
ously incommoding each other — provided both 
are equally cleanly and tidy about their persons 
and the room, and can agree with regard to venti- 
lation by night and by day. But one who loves 
order, bathing, and abundant fresh air, should 
never be doomed to intimate association with an- 
other of opposite inclinations. Each one will 
make life a burden to the other. 

A word more upon the subject of the writing 



BEDCHAMBERS 81 

desk. They are so cheap and so very convenient 
they are within the reach of everyone who lives 
in any degree of comfort. If anything is to be 
omitted or postponed during the early furnish- 
ing of a house let it be what is less practical than 
the desks. Well-made useful furniture — how- 
ever simple it may be — if of the sort that is 
easily kept clean, always affords the greatest 
amount of comfort for the price. With 
single beds having open and woven wire springs, 
hair or felt mattresses, and the other articles of 
furniture already mentioned, also a few rugs of 
light weight placed where most needed and a few 
pleasing pictures, not many, hung upon the walls, 
the bedchamber will be thoroughly comfortable 
and not troublesome to keep clean. 

It is a great mistake from every view point to 
crowd any part of a house — but bedchambers 
especially — with things to gather and hold dust 
the greater portion of the time because no one has 
leisure to attend to them. The practice is un- 
wholesome, untidy, and unbeautiful. It detracts 
from comfort and increases care while at the 
same time it offends good taste. Even books, left 
about, that are not in constant use, make extra 
work and suffer for the exposure. The art of 
furnishing is manifested when everything is 



82 HOUSE AND HOME 

selected and skillfully arranged for use and con- 
venience and whatever only serves for the quiet 
repose of dust is barred out altogether. Espe- 
cially objectionable are things mounted over door- 
tops, or above windows, unreachable except by 
the aid of a stepladder. It requires a retinue of 
servants to keep things decent in a house 
crammed with things. Fortunately for the 
abject fashion-followers that style is out of 
date. 

The more elegant the mansion, the fewer use- 
less things are in it. Beautiful pictures, bronzes, 
and exquisite statuary serve a high purpose be- 
cause they cultivate the eye and minister to our 
aesthetic sense, and are not difficult to keep clean 
when there is always someone whose business it is 
to attend to them daily. Pictures composed of 
good subjects are suggestive of pure and eleva- 
ting thoughts and tend to promote re- 
freshing sleep. But it is a mistake to convert a 
bedchamber into a promiscuous picture gallery, 
or to cram it with all sorts of things until it sug- 
gests a museum out of order, and also gives one 
a choking sense of a load of dust forever ac- 
cumulating on the endless things scattered about 
upon every available space of wall, table, or man- 
tel. Those who indulge in such bad taste need 



BEDCHAMBERS 83 

not be surprised if they sometimes suffer with 
insomnia or have dreams of the nightmare type. 

A light small table, furnished with a little tray 
to hold a pitcher of drinking water and a glass, 
a candlestick, candle and matches, is not only 
useful, but a very desirable article of bedroom 
furniture. It should be so light as to be easily 
moved to the bedside at night and back to the 
w r all in the daytime. This of course is unneces- 
sary in a room that has a commode always stand- 
ing beside the bed. 

In every bedchamber that has not ample closet 
room, the doors should have framed hooks hung 
up, and these should always be covered with a 
curtain of cretonne or whatever will best har- 
monize with the general furnishings of the room. 
A shelf set up on brackets with hooks screwed in 
on the under side and the whole inclosed with a 
curtain, helps to preserve order by increasing 
conveniences for hanging garments where closet 
room is lacking. The universal shoe-bag is so fa- 
miliar to almost everyone it seems hardly neces- 
sary to mention that it belongs to the list of useful 
and necessary articles for the inside of closet doors. 

Every housewife should keep on hand a 
supply of small brass hooks to be screwed up 
whenever an extra place is needed for hanging 



84 HOUSE AND HOME 

up clothes-brushes, scrap-holders, etc. Tacks, and 
nails are abominable when driven in walls or 
wood work. They are ugly in themselves and 
always leave shabby holes when they are 
removed. Reckless picture-hanging can be 
averted by having picture-hooks placed at inter- 
vals upon the cornice and left ready for any im- 
promptu wall decorations by thoughtless ones. 

A brass chain-bolt on bedroom doors is a great 
comfort to timid souls who do not like to be 
locked in and dare not sleep without a fastening 
of some sort. Wherever women are much alone in 
their homes, especially in the country where it is 
lonely, the front and rear entrances to the house 
ought to have chain-bolts. Tramps and doubtful 
strangers can then be interviewed without fear of 
an unpleasantness. In this connection it may not 
be altogether out of place to mention the window 
fastenings. In many houses they are farcically 
absurd and a waste of purchase money besides the 
carpenter's time in mounting them. But win- 
dow fastenings may be had which can only be 
moved from the inside, and that sort are some 
protection. 

In the country, and wherever there is neither 
electrical or gas light, the halls should have some 
sort of stationary ararngement for lighting with 



BEDCHAMBERS 85 

oil, because dark halls are unsafe, besides being 
exceedingly uncomfortable. Sooner or later 
there is sure to be an accident or serious trouble 
of some sort where darkness reigns. The light 
should be in a hanging lantern expressly for the 
purpose, or else placed on a bracket, beyond the 
possibility of being knocked over, and always 
above people's heads. The consumption of oil 
for such lighting is very trifling compared with 
the comfort and safety insured by the practice. 
A light in a bedroom all night is very objection- 
able, while one outside is most desirable. It is 
said that thieves and burglars are easily fright- 
ened off when they see a light in a house they 
have planned to enter. This is another po- 
tent reason for keeping halls lit at night. 

Every house, however simple, can be made at- 
tractive by the tasteful adjustment of a few 
plants here and there. Plants cost very little 
and repay one for all the care that is wisely be- 
stowed upon them. Every dining room should 
have a few green things growing there in the 
winter and a little jardiniere full of thriving 
ferns always ready for a centerpiece on the din- 
ing table. They can be had with trifling expense 
and very little trouble. A drink of water daily 
and an occasional full bath in a sink with a water- 



86 HOUSE AND HOME 

ing-pot's sprinkler, or a vaporizer used where the 
plants are, keeps them washed clean and is all 
the care they need after being potted in good rich 
earth for the winter. Of course, like human 
beings, plants must have pure, fresh air to 
breathe or they too will become sickly and lose 
all their brightness. If in every modestly fur- 
nished house there could be plants in place of 
cheap bric-a-brac, untidy tidies, and mantels 
full of useless cheap trash, great would be the im- 
provement in the homes and in the mental condi- 
tion of their inmates. Plants speak an eloquent 
language, potent and uplifting, albeit voiceless. 

Those who select carpets, rugs, or indeed any- 
thing for their homes because they will not show 
soil, make a serious mistake. Uncleanly carpets, 
rugs and portieres, invite disease by harboring 
dirt and germs — the forerunners of doctor's and 
drug bills. The house par excellence is one 
which can be kept clean and orderly without 
demanding too much toil from anyone. Its 
11 Joy and temperance and repose slam the door 
on the doctor's nose " — as far as his professional 
visits are concerned. A joyful, temperate, re- 
poseful state is never found where disorder 
reigns. Real temperance covers a very wide 
range of subjects. 



U CHAPTER SIX TJ 



5^TH ROOM AND BATH-ROOM 
ETIQUETTE 

Protect basins. India rubber mats. Vigilance required to keep 

pipes free and clean. The ounce of prevention an economy. 

Plenty of fresh air. Printed rules in bath room. 

rr 

iURING periods of cleaning and 
settling it is very essential to 
guard bath rooms against abuse 
through misuse. Scrub-women 
and those who generally do 
rough work cannot be expected 
to realize the very great importance of keeping 
everything that pertains to a bath room in 
dainty condition, for they have neither training 
in, or time for, careful ways, and are usually 
much hurried — going from place to place about a 
house doing the hard work that falls to their lot. 
Therefore they are not to be blamed for any 
damage, if no provision has been made by 
a responsible and interested person for guard- 
ing a bath room and everything in it 

87 




88 HOUSE AND HOME 

from being defaced while cleaning is in 
progress. Of course, where there is a house- 
maid's closet, with hot and cold water faucets 
and a waste basin of ample dimensions for 
receiving pails of water dashed into it in a hurry, 
the bath room can then be locked and kept in 
perfect condition against the coming of the family 
who are to live in the house. But then the waste 
basin should have something placed in the bottom 
to hold back all clogging stuff, or that pipe may 
get choked. An ordinary wire sieve set in over 
the opening, or an old colander, will answer the 
purpose. They can be lifted as often as neces- 
sary and the dust and refuse collected therein 
sent below to the garbage can. But, if there be 
no such place convenient for the workers to use 
they will have to go to the bath room, for the 
steps of day-by-day toilers should always be con- 
sidered and no more imposed upon them than the 
exigencies of the occasion demand. Therefore if 
the bath room must be open to them, every means 
should be employed to protect it from injury. 
Before any cleaning begins the floor, if of hard 
or stained wood, ought to be covered with strong 
paper fastened down to keep it immovable under 
the treading of feet. There is a stout dark 
paper, which comes in rolls for protecting floors 



BATH-ROOM ETIQUETTE 89 



during cleaning times, always used by skilled 
floor-polishers, that bears very hard usage 
without tearing. This paper is the best thing 
that the writer knows of for such occasions. 
The bath tub and the basin can both be protected 
by placing in each, over the waste exit, the india- 
rubber mats that come for that purpose. Upon 
these pails can stand without marring the porce- 
lain or marble. Waste water should never be 
thrown into a bath tub because it makes ex- 
traordinary cleaning frequently necessary to pre- 
vent staining the tub. Whatever place may be 
chosen for getting rid of the dirty water during 
cleaning times, vigilance will be requisite to avoid 
choking the pipes and something easily removed 
should always be used as a shield to hold back 
the matted stuff that commonly collects at those 
times. This is one of many instances during 
house-cleaning when the proverbial ounce of pre- 
vention spares someone pounds, shillings, and 
pence of expense for cure. An early call upon 
— and from — the plumber for repairs is not in- 
variably fraught with unalloyed pleasure to a 
household, either immediately or when the in- 
evitable bill is presented for payment. Far bet- 
ter, by a little forethought and painstaking, 
avert possible mischief than experience the vex- 



9o HOUSE AND HOME 

atious consequences of one's own omission to safe- 
guard exposed places. It is childish to blame 
others for damage occurring because of our own 
indolence or negligence. Better is it to accept 
blame with responsibility, and be wiser the next 
time. 

There are various inexpensive conveniences 
and aids to tidy housekeeping which make small 
extra jobs that are much easier attended to at 
settling time than later on when everything is 
in order. 

One very great convenience in a bath room 
is a towel bar at a suitable height, placed 
against the wall all around the room, except 
where it would interfere with other stationary 
furniture. Bars of heavy glass or nickel plate 
are easiest kept clean. Every bath tub should be 
provided with a large sponge-holder of wire or 
metal, and a soap-holder also, either of metal or 
india rubber. They all should hang, not stand, 
on the bath tub's edge. Over the face-basin, or 
else beside it, another soap-holder should hang. 
It is less trouble to keep things looking nice in 
a bath room where nothing is allowed to stand 
on the basin's edge or on the bath-tub, because 
when left on those places they are apt to get 
pushed about and have no settled abiding place, 



BATH-ROOM ETIQUETTE 91 

and it takes longer to clean up with things in the 
way to be lifted about. 

A set of inclosed hanging shelves can be used 
for many things needed in a bath room; they 
will, at the same time, aid in preserving order. 
In fact, that end should be always in view when 
house-settling is going on. Ingenious people can 
contrive many inexpensive additions to a house 
that will cultivate habits of order in those who 
seem most disorderly. Three or four large 
double clothes-hooks screwed upon the inside of 
a bath room's door, and left exclusively for the 
use of persons going in there for a bath, are 
amongst the requisites for that room. No one 
should be allowed to monopolize anything in a 
bath room used by several persons. It should 
be always free and open to all, and invariably 
left in order by the last bather. A bottle of in- 
odorous disinfectant ought always to be kept in 
every bath room, but beyond the reach of chil- 
dren. At least once a w T eek some of the bottle's 
contents should be poured down every waste 
pipe. 

It is better to have the water closet separate 
from the bath room, with its own independent 
entrance. But in that case, if it have no 
window opening to outside fresh air, it will 



92 HOUSE AND HOME 

demand far more watchful care to keep it pure, 
no matter how perfect the plumbing or how 
abundant the water flushing may be. Those 
places always testify unequivocally to any 
negligence upon the part of persons whose 
duty it is to see that they receive undeviating 
care. When in full sight, in a brightly 
lighted room, any neglect is soon evident. 
It is a good plan, w T hen they are in dark or 
dimly lighted closets, to have an extra and 
portable seat always kept upon the one that is 
stationary, to protect the latter. The portable 
seat can be taken to the light, scoured in the 
open air, and given a sun bath, which is always 
the best of all purifiers. 

On no account permit anyone to set a heavy 
pail, or any weighty thing, in bath-room w T ash 
basins. They are easily cracked, next, they leak, 
and replacing them is expensive. Eternal vig- 
ilance is the price of enjoying nice modern 
conveniences. 

The bath room is a suitable place for keeping 
a hamper for soiled clothes. But damp tow T els 
should be dried before they are consigned to it, 
and the hamper should never reveal its contents, 
neither should any soiled articles be left upon 
the cover. 



BATH-ROOM ETIQUETTE 9 3 

It would be a good plan if all bath rooms, not 
strictly private, could have printed rules framed 
and hung up in plain sight of all bathers, giving 
a few very simple admonitions upon what is 
" good form in a lavatory of any sort. The 
fact is that in what might be termed the minor 
morals, a great many people seem to be deficient 
of all training. \ Nowhere is this more glaringly 
evident than in bath rooms used by several 
people. While, as a rule, individuals carry their 
own towels and soap to a bath room, yet some- 
times one may be compelled to use a cake of soap 
that is there for emergencies. Whoever does 
make personal use of it should at least wipe it 
dry before laying it back in the soap-holder, for 
it is very disagreeable to take hold of soap that 
has been left wet. This may, to some, seem 
overfastidious, but a young woman lost a trip 
to Europe just because she was careless in 
that particular. The friend who was asked why 
she did not take her as a companion when she 
w r anted company on a tour abroad, answered: 
" Oh, I cannot take .her, she always leaves the 
soap wet." 

\ A cursory glance at a bath room reveals the 
degree of refinement of those who habitually use 
it. It is, however, very unfair to judge without 



94 HOUSE AND HOME 

knowing if all, or only one or two, are guilty of 
leaving untidy conditions. 

Once upon a time, in a boarding house, a lady, 
who was on her way to take a bath, armed with 
a brush, sapolio, and a cloth for cleaning the 
tub before she could use it, announced to a friend 
whom she met on the way: " I have found a 
definition for a Christian. A Christian is one 
who leaves a bath tub clean after taking a bath." 
Only those who have gone through the same ex- 
perience can sympathize with that long-suffering 
one who had learned to her sorrow to go pre- 
pared for the work that awaited her. It does 
seem altogether unjust that decent people should 
be obliged to do double duty in a bath room 
because self-respect will not permit them to fol- 
low a bad precedent by likewise leaving the 
tub without washing and drying it. 

" Well, dear," said an experienced old lady, 
upon hearing some of these things from a younger 
relative who was just beginning to go about in 
boarding houses, " you will find, as you journey 
through life, that many of the people whom you 
meet will be half-baked." 

Half-baked is a synonym for under-bred or 
untrained. There is no reason why the half- 
baked class should remain doughy. Those who 



BATH-ROOM ETIQUETTE 95 



have not had the advantage of good examples and 
training at home can remedy the consequent 
lack of propriety, if they desire to do so. / It is 
only a question of ambition to improve in every 
way. Thoughtlessness, which is selfishness, and 
indolence, which is correlated to the other two, 
are the only barriers to self-improvement. \ 

It is well to remember that what seem like 
trifles to the sinners are not trifles to those who 
suffer from them. Moreover, we have high 
authority for saying that trifles light as air make 
up the sum of earthly existence. No one has 
ever improved upon the Golden Rule. Its prac- 
tice would make a heaven of every home. Our 
sorely tried friend was right. "A Christian 
leaves the bath tub clean " — obeys the Golden 
Rule. 



u 



CHAPTER SEVEN 



U 



CARE OF BEDS AND BEDSTEADS 



Housekeeping stamped by appearance of beds. Sunning and airing. 

The way to secure an aired bed. To judge a housemaid's 

training. Another boarding-house anecdote. 




EDSTEADS and mattresses re- 
quire vigilant care to keep them 
clean and free from dust or 
vermin, and protected against 
^^bH^I spotting of any sort. The 
^^ whole character of any house- 

keeping is unmistakably stamped by the ap- 
pearance of the bedsteads and the mattresses 
when they are uncovered. Mattresses once 
soiled are very difficult to clean without tak- 
ing them apart. They should never be 
left uncovered for any great length of time, 
and when in use ought to have slip covers 
of strong muslin that can be removed and washed 
periodically. When they are moved about 
their covers should always be left on. It is 
hardly necessary to expatiate upon the trifling 

96 



BEDS AND BEDSTEADS 97 



work of washing these covers as compared with 
cleaning the mattresses when once they get soiled. 
Their covers are also advantageous because they 
protect them from dust, especially where it is 
difficult to remove, in and around the tufting. 
When not so protected mattresses should be 
swept monthly with a whisk broom, and all of 
the tufts thoroughly brushed free from dust 
which may get around or in them during the 
intervals between the regular cleaning days. 

Mattresses may be kept like new for years if 
they are systematically turned daily — one day 
reversed from side to side, and the next from 
top to bottom. This method helps to equalize 
the pressure upon them of the human body, and 
prevents their becoming soon packed in spots, as 
they do when no attention is paid to mattress 
turning. It lightens the labor of turning and in- 
sures greater variety of pressure, if mattresses for 
double bedsteads are made in sections easy to 
handle. 

Little quilted and washable bed protectors 
come neatly made and bound. They are inex- 
pensive and should be a part of the furnishing of 
all beds, but especially for those of children and 
very old people. They are easily made at home 
where there is a sewing machine, which, in these 



98 HOUSE AND HOME 

days, most houses have. A careful housekeeper, 
after many years at housekeeping with the same 
beds and furniture generally, will have a nicer 
house and everything in better condition than an 
inexperienced, careless one, beginning with every- 
thing new and of the best, will have at the end 
of a very few years of non-care-taking. 

Twice a year, in fine weather, mattresses 
should have a good sunning, in the open air, 
hanging over lines; while they are outside is a 
fitting time to have them well thrashed with a 
bamboo rug whipper. This need not cause an 
upsetting of all the rooms at once. They can 
be done, one or two at a time, gradually but 
methodically, in order not to overlook any 
one. 

Here again, the housewife's notebook will be 
found serviceable, because she can check off each 
one when it is done. A family of ordinary size 
may have about eight or perhaps ten mattresses. 
Taking two or three a day, or having them done 
when the room where they belong is being 
cleaned, the job will not be at all formidable. 
But a sun bath for hours twice a year ought to 
be given to every mattress that is in constant use. 
One should be given in very cold, clear, frosty 
weather. And June is usually the best month 



BEDS AND BEDSTEADS 99 

for the other sun and air bath. It is safe to 
assert that those who are so fortunate as to 
sleep on beds thus cared for will be in less danger 
of suffering from insomnia, and will enjoy better 
health, than others who sleep on non-aired and 
packed mattresses. The reason* is apparent, for 
one is wholesome and the other unwholesome. 
Of course, after a mattress has been out in ex- 
tremely cold weather it should be placed in a 
warm room long enough to take the chill off 
before anyone sleeps on it, or else it should have 
a hot iron passed over it on both sides before the 
bed is made up to be immediately occupied. 
Common sense should always be used when rules 
and regulations about a house are being made or 
followed. 

It is a good plan to have wire lines put up on 
piazzas or on second-story roofs, accessible from 
windows, and then mattress airing is simplified 
and the labor minimized. Another advantage of 
this airing is that in case of a sudden shower 
they can be taken in quickly and therefore escape 
getting damp. By first spreading down a large 
piece of unbleached muslin upon a sunny roof, 
the mattresses can lie out there with safety. A 
clever woman of ideas will, after one or two 
hints, think of* ways and means for airing and 



LofC. 



ioo HOUSE AND HOME 

doing the many things that fall under this head 
of house management. The great secret for all 
thorough housekeepers to learn and faithfully 
practice is : " Let your head save your heels a 
journey." There will be always steps enough 
to keep their blood in good circulation. 

People living in crowded cities, with little or no 
yard space, and those unfortunates who dwell in 
flats, will, of course, have to content themselves 
with airing before open windows; better that 
than none at all, but they will require window 
ventilation for their mattresses six times as often 
as the happy beings who live where they can have 
a patch of green grass all their own and ample 
airing space outside their houses. Pillows, bol- 
sters, and everything filled with feathers or 
down should be treated much the same as mat- 
tresses. 

Pillows and bolsters can be kept in good con- 
dition by pinning them on lines out in the open 
air, and letting them get a thorough sun and 
air bath. If they can be spared long enough it 
does them good to have a summer shower bath, 
provided they can be left outside afterwards to 
get perfectly dry. But this should never be 
done during a damp season. The right time is 
when sunshine and showers alternate, and when 



BEDS AND BEDSTEADS ior 

the sunshine lasts long enough to dry whatever 
is outside. Pillows and bolsters, as well as mat- 
tresses, should have slip covers. On some ac- 
counts slip covers for pillows are even more nec- 
essary than any of the others, as pillows are, in 
many ways, more exposed to soil and are un- 
sightly and unpleasant if not perfectly clean. 

Able bodied ones, old and young, rich and poor 
alike, should be taught to open their own beds in 
the morning. Those who do not do it im- 
mediately upon rising, or else see to it that it 
is done by a trustworthy person, can never be 
sure of sleeping in a well-aired bed. Stripping 
one's own bed is the absolutely safe plan, for 
that makes neglect of airing out of the question 
for the one who puts the room in order. No 
matter how many servants there may be em- 
ployed in a house, it is impossible to tell when 
negligence in this particular may occur. The 
easiest way is to make a habit of personally at- 
tending to this trifling, but by no means unimpor- 
tant, job. A couple of chairs placed facing seat 
to seat, a little space between them, before a 
window, will hold the bedclothes. They should 
be laid over the chairs in the order in which they 
are removed from the bed. This brings the 
under sheet uppermost, as it should be, because 



io2 HOUSE AND HOME 

it requires the most airing, and then, too, they 
will all be ready in just the order required for 
making up the bed. 

Blankets require special care and should never 
be allowed to touch the floor for a second. No 
one willingly sleeps under soiled blankets; they 
are not easy to clean at home, and sending them 
out to the cleaners is expensive; further, they 
lose some of their softness and beauty with every 
cleaning. It is unpardonable to drag blankets 
across a floor, however clean it may be. When 
they hang over chairs the corners should escape 
the floor by two inches. Observe a new house- 
maid when she strips a bed, if you would know 
how and in what sort of a house she has been 
trained. This is one of the unmistakable signs 
which reveal whether she has lived with, and 
been taught by, a dainty or a slovenly housewife. 
But if she comes from an average boarding 
house, you will know beforehand just what to 
expect. 

After the bedclothes have been removed the 
mattress ought to be turned down over the foot 
of the bed. By thus opening a bed before going 
to the bath room, and then, after getting dressed, 
opening the window, top and bottom, before 
leaving the room, one may rest tranquilly as- 



BEDS AND BEDSTEADS 103 



sured that whoever makes up the bed its ventila- 
tion is a foregone conclusion. 

Once upon a time, not many years ago, in a 
very nice boarding house situated in one of the 
best portions of New York, I spent some months, 
and saw and learned the ways of those places. 
Nor was that the only boarding-house experience 
that my malific stars destined me to encounter. 
Those same unlucky stars led me to dwell from 
time to time in several boarding houses in city 
and country. Although they were all considered 
of the better type, I sometimes wondered if mine 
were the only bed and bedchamber regularly 
aired — such sights and negligence as were patent 
to one going to and fro in those houses! It 
seemed to me that scarcely anyone thought of, 
or knew anything about having fresh air daily in 
bedchambers. One day, as I passed an open 
door, I noticed the bed had been occupied by a 
sleeper who, upon leaving it, left just the nec- 
essary opening where she had gotten out. That 
and the dent on the pillow were the only dis- 
turbed parts of the bed. The young woman who 
had the room had gone out ; she knew little, and 
cared less, about what was done in her room dur- 
ing her absence so long as she found it in order 
upon her return. I was not five minutes doing 



io4 HOUSE AND HOME 

my errand. When I passed the room again the 
bed was all in order, made! Doubtless the ser- 
vant attending there knew how to avoid work, 
apparently useless (?), certainly not imperative, 
and had learned the secret of decreasing the 
burden of duties belonging to that floor — was, in 
short, an adept at labor-saving. 

A young widow who was the sleeping beauty 
of that room used to come to the table beauti- 
fully appareled, but I never saw her after that 
memorable day without seeing also, in vision, 
her bed, which probably never got fully opened 
except when it was the day for clean linen — once 
a week! Several years have passed since that 
time. The pretty widow married again and 
went to housekeeping! Fancy what a house- 
wife she must make! Those who go about much 
or little in hotels and boarding houses need not 
be surprised should they discover like practices 
if they trustfully leave everything pertaining to 
ventilation to much hurried, and too often, over- 
worked servants. The latter persons are not 
to be blamed. The blame lies upon those who, 
having had greater advantages, ought to look 
after these things themselves. 

A lady well known to the writer used to place 
a pin in the binding of her mattress, every morn- 



BEDS AND BEDSTEADS 105 

ing, at the head in a particular spot. The next 
day when she turned her mattress over the foot 
board she looked for the pin. If it was still at 
the head she knew that the maid had neglected to 
turn the mattress entirely and she would ask her 
why she had omitted it. She trained several 
housemaids, and it never took long to get them 
into the habit of reversing the mattress unre- 
mittingly. 

They never knew how she knew, but they real- 
ized that skipping would not answer in that 
room. 

Sitting down upon a bed after it is nicely made 
up is a disorderly habit to which some are prone 
even if chairs are plenty. It is impossible to keep 
a tidy-looking room where it is allowed. This is 
not the only objection to that habit: there are sev- 
eral, amongst them the soiling of the spread, and 
destroying the freshness of the bed for the one 
who occupies it at night; it is also un- 
mannerly. 

Once a month bedsteads should be washed in 
every unseen part. A little carbolic acid in the 
water is good for the purpose or, if disliked, 
household ammonia is efficacious. If there are 
slats each one should be lifted and wiped as well 
as the places where they fit in. This practice 



io6 HOUSE AND HOME 

faithfully carried out will forbid the " red rover " 
from ever gaining a foothold in the beds. That 
pest is only kept away by immaculate cleanliness 
and strenuous care. The name usually given to 
that insect is so suggestive of abominable un- 
cleanliness I object to its use on the pages of this 
book. My readers will recognize the particular 
species of insect now under consideration, as few 
people reach years of discretion without becoming 
aware of its existence. Those who travel much 
make its hateful acquaintance early and learn 
its peculiar ways, which are dark, and its artful 
tricks which are not vain. In houses of families 
that journey a great deal, watchfulness is most 
important to destroy the first invaders and pre- 
vent their incalculable propagation. Some stu- 
dent of their obnoxious possibilities declares that 
they become " great grandfathers in twenty-four 
hours! " It is a safe rule never to allow those 
who have been in public conveyances to lay their 
garments on a bed. Exceptionally nice house- 
wives observe this rule at all times, even with 
persons who have only been walking, for, with 
their outside wraps they also deposit dust gath- 
ered while out. No one can keep a bed nice who 
is indifferent in these particulars. A white bed- 
spread soon shows soil and a colored one becomes 



BEDS AND BEDSTEADS 107 

dirty even if it does not show it. The best plan 
for all who can do so is to have pretty and deli- 
cate-looking spreads that people with eyes will 
instinctively respect. In the chapter of miscel- 
laneous hints will be found directions for making 
inexpensive bedspreads too pretty and dainty 
not to command care. Day bedspreads should 
be taken off in the evening, carefully folded and 
laid aside before a bed is to be occupied. 

Returning to our main subject, the red rover, 
young housewives, who have had no home train- 
ing, are apt to overlook this very important 
feature of all housekeeping until they are sud- 
denly confronted with a most appalling and for- 
midable as well as disgusting task, which proper 
attention to their duties would spare them. 
With a spick-and-span new house, and furniture 
likewise all new, and no woodwork in the house 
that is said to breed vermin of any sort, a neglect- 
ful housewife is certain to find at some time, not 
very far distant from her entrance upon her new 
home, that she is harboring countless non-paying 
lodgers that occupy her beds day and night and 
which, if not exterminated before they begin to 
crowd each other, will spread and domicile them- 
selves in the woodwork and walls of her home. 
I remember a case which came to my knowledge 



108 HOUSE AND HOME 

many years ago. A young wife whose father 
had given her a complete wedding outfit — includ- 
ing a house and furniture — went to her new 
home utterly ignorant of the first principles of 
good housekeeping. In less than two years she 
was compelled to face the astounding fact that 
some of her handsome bedsteads were alive. For- 
tunately the discovery was made in time to pre- 
vent the odious insects from getting into the walls 
and woodwork of her beautiful house. Then 
and there that untrained young wife got a lesson 
— not of the most agreeable sort — that lasted 
for the remainder of her life. She afterwards 
became a very neat and dainty housekeeper, but 
the poor child might have been spared such a sick- 
ening experience if her mother had done her duty 
by her before the charge of an entire house de- 
volved upon her, along with wifehood and 
motherhood. The only way to escape like ex- 
periences is by the constant exercise of vigilant 
care and watchfulness. Housemaids should be 
instructed to give immediate notice upon the sight 
of one of those bugbears. 

The bed where it is found should be promptly 
taken apart and examined thoroughly, not a spot 
or crevice overlooked ; no matter how clean it 
may appear to be, without delay have it washed 



BEDS AND BEDSTEADS 109 



with a strong solution of carbolic acid and water, 
or else pour ammonia everywhere that it will not 
damage the woodwork. Use kerosene oil where 
ammonia would be likely to deface. 

Servants' rooms and beds need more watching, 
to ward off these intruders, than otfier portions of 
a nicely kept house. This is because, when they 
visit friends who live in tenements, they lay their 
out-of-door wraps on the beds there. The result 
is that their visits are sometimes promptly re- 
turned, by proxy, in a way far from desirable, for 
those pestiferous insects never make short visits, 
theirs are visitations. Possession with them is 
far more than " nine points of the law," they pro- 
vide homes for their descendants unto the third 
and fourth generation of their children's children, 
and, in that regard, bear a strong resemblance to 
the multi-billionaires of our day. But they are 
no respectors of persons or purses nor yet of fine 
clothes. 

A lady, who only knew splendor in living, 
once found one inside of her costly silk stock- 
ing. It is safe to say that it was a solitary 
stranger but just arrived, as it had not found its 
way to the regularly first chosen abiding place of 
the red rover. The lady was considerably ex- 
cited at first, because she fancied the advent of 



no HOUSE AND HOME 

that intruder an evidence of more about her 
palatial mansion, whereas it was a lonely so- 
journer which she had unwittingly ushered into 
her own dressing room upon her return from an 
excursion abroad. 

Sempiternal boarders and lodgers are in this 
respect the greatest source of danger and the 
vehicles of transportation most frequently used by 
the double B's when they change their residing 
places. 

An old house to be occupied, especially one 
that has had a great variety of tenants, should be 
fumigated with sulphur before anything else is 
done in it. While it is quite empty the purifica- 
tion can be more thorough with comparatively 
little trouble. If wall paper has been put 
on, layer on layer, it ought all to be stripped 
off before any cleaning is done. Papering in that 
way is a most untidy practice and provides a 
refuge for all sorts of vermin that infest man's 
abode. It is a wretched economy of time and 
labor which eventually costs a great deal more 
than if the work were properly done at every 
time of new papering. 

The subject's importance will, I trust, excuse 
this lengthy treatment of the " red rover." It 
demands attention wherever it lodges, albeit its 



BEDS AND BEDSTEADS 



1 1 1 



manners are unquestionably retiring. Loving 
darkness better than light it thus resembles other, 
and less pardonable, evil doers that make life a 
burden to all who are so unfortunate as to come 
in contact with them. 



tJ CHAPTER EIGHT U 



SERVANTS' ROOMS 

Often like an infirmary for broken-down furniture. Our ancestors 
had few conveniences. They were not immaculately clean. 
Light, heat, ventilation. The best " settin' room." 

^j~~pT is a safe plan, when one is doing for 
others, always to bear in mind 
that if we should be reduced to 
just what we deserve, appreciate, 
and take good care of, we should, 
one and all, find ourselves cut 
down In luxuries, comforts, and health. It is 
neither wise nor polite to deal with domestics 
upon the basis of their deserts when making ar- 
rangements for their housing. Household ser- 
vants' rooms should be furnished in accordance 
with the general house-funishings of, and the 
manner of living adopted by, the family that they 
are serving. Their bedchambers ought to be 
cool in summer and warm in winter, not, as is 
too often the case in rooms specially designed for 

112 




SERVANTS' ROOMS 113 

them, those temperatures reversed to extreme de- 
grees when the seasons are reversed. Their furni- 
ture ought to be good and in good order and kept 
in repair as scrupulously as that in any other part 
of the house. It is not fair, it is scarcely decent, 
to treat a servant's room as if it were a sort of 
infirmary for all the crippled furniture of the 
house while it is unlike the hospital in every other 
feature since there is no attempt at mending. 

Where it seems necessary for two maids to 
occupy one bedchamber, each should be provided 
with individual furniture, heds, bureaus, wash- 
stands, and, if possible, their closets should be 
separate. This arrangement enables each one to 
be independent of the movements of the other. 
Unless they have free access to a bath room, they 
should have, besides a complete washstand toilet 
set, a foot bath and a light-weight pail, as 
a pitcher of water, we all know, is a very scanty 
supply for one who must bathe in a bedchamber. 
People who work need conveniences for keeping 
themselves clean even more than those who 
never take violent exercise or do any hard work. 
Their duties compel them to rise early, wash 
and dress quickly, and even when they go to 
their rooms after a day's work they have to clean 
themselves speedily, as the afternoon respite is 



ii4 HOUSE AND HOME 

not long to wash and dress, and perhaps do some 
mending for themselves. A couple of hours will 
slip away quickly in doing a very few things for 
decency's sake. Let none who have not 
experimented in making their domestics' rooms as 
nice and inviting as their purses would permit, 
presume to say: " Why, they would not use con- 
veniences if we gave them to them." Give them 
an opportunity to learn how before making any 
such declaration. There was a time when our 
ancestors did not bathe as we do. They had no 
conveniences to teach, and enable, them to be 
clean. All in one family went to one place for 
their scanty ablutions. That they were not im- 
maculately clean or stunningly well-groomed in 
those days of darkness goes without saying. 
Neither is it fair to say: " Oh, what's the use 
of giving anything nice to servants? " That 
might as often be said with reference to children, 
and even of the young men and women of a 
family, who are frequently exceedingly careless 
and destructive of beautiful and very expensive 
articles. It requires training and time before 
people generally learn how to appreciate and care 
for what is bestowed upon them and costs them 
nothing at all. Domestics are not peculiar in 
these matters. 



SERVANTS' ROOMS 115 

Servants' rooms should be sun-lighted by day 
and have good artificial light by night. To give 
a domestic a dark closet to sleep in is unpardon- 
able. Their rooms ought to have means for 
thorough ventilation, and that is impossible with- 
out a window opening to outside air. The 
wretched closets designed for servants' rooms 
one finds in apartment houses are a disgrace to 
this age of vaunted civilization. These con- 
tracted little places, misnamed rooms, are only 
fit to be used for wardrobes or for storing trunks 
and are urgent cases for the interference of the 
health officers. 

After having provided suitably for servants' 
quarters it is right and proper to require them 
to keep their rooms clean and orderly, but they 
may, like boys and girls, have to be taught and 
trained in habits of cleanliness and order. People 
the world over, high and low, rich and poor, 
naturally love to improve their environments as 
far as they can possibly do so. We see this evi- 
denced in the ignorant, sometimes laughable, 
sometimes pathetic, efforts of poor creatures who 
have never had a chance to learn the difference 
between what is truly beautiful and w T hat is taw- 
dry and absurd. Witness the " best settin' 
room " in some out-of-the-way country farrrb 



n6 HOUSE AND HOME 

house, where the family work all the time and 
never go abroad or learn anything new. 

I remember one such place where the parlor 
mantel-piece was a bewildering conglomeration 
of trumpery things put up there as ornaments, 
and on the wall hung a photograph of the coffin 
of the father. It had a wreath of white flowers 
encircling "Father" in purple immortelles. The 
mistress of the house caught me one evening 
when I was studying that work of art with a 
friend who was in the same house. I had 
a lamp uplifted to get the best light possible 
upon the picture when the widow appeared upon 
the scene. Fortunately for her peace of mind 
and our credit she never doubted that we were 
transfixed with admiration, for she promptly in- 
formed us what the lugubrious picture cost! 

But the point is that, given the chance to im- 
prove and examples worthy of being followed, 
people, as a rule, gladly seize every opportunity 
to beautify their surroundings. Beautiful things 
and dainty environment educe and cultivate order 
and cleanliness, perhaps not all at once, but as- 
suredly in time. 

I once heard a story told by a noble woman 
whose name is always associated in my mind with 
the beautiful work that she has done amongst the 



SERVANTS' ROOMS 117 

" Little Mothers of New York." She said that 
a lovely rosebud had been the indirect means of 
transforming a wretched room in a tenement 
house from squalor to cleanliness and order. 
Someone gave the flower to a little girl, who took 
it to her forlorn home and put it in a glass of 
water on the mantel-piece. The rosebud's love- 
liness so shamed the entire mantel in the eyes of 
the family, the place had to be cleaned and made 
fit to hold the beautiful flower. The clean and 
tidy mantel made all about it look so unsightly in 
contrast that the work of cleaning continued step 
by step until the whole place was changed from 
its former miserable condition to cleanliness and 
order, and this wonderful improvement was 
brought about by the advent in their midst of a 
perfect flower. One cannot but envy the happy 
person who thought to give that exquisite rose 
to the poor, shabby little girl. 

Give to the hard-working ones in your homes 
all that you can to brighten their lives and uplift 
their thoughts ; a few pictures on the walls of 
their rooms, and now and then a flower that will 
speak to them more eloquently than is possible 
for any human voice of the beauty of purity and 
the heavenliness of order when they are alone in 
then rooms with time to think. 



n8 HOUSE AND HOME 

However great the variety in human beings 
there is one thing to which all respond in kind, 
if not in quality, and that is the spirit of kind- 
liness. And there is a striking similarity in all 
of us whenever beauty, luxury, and the good 
things of earth come our way; we all take to them 
naturally and assimilate them promptly. The 
proof of this is found everywhere in the homes 
of the " new rich," albeit it commonly requires 
one generation before they appear to the manner 
born. But that is not remarkable when we con- 
sider the leaps and bounds taken by some from 
poverty and privation to the realm of the million- 
aires. 

One of the most attractive bedchambers that 
I ever saw assigned to a household domestic was 
in a very simple inexpensive home of a young 
couple who were not well off, according to the 
world's standard. Their house was small and 
very plain compared with the average homes of 
their friends and people of their culture and 
standing. When I was there they had but lately 
passed through some trying financial struggles, 
and careful economy characterized their house- 
hold management in every department. It was 
my good fortune to be taken over that little 
home. What there impressed me more than any- 



SERVANTS' ROOMS 119 

thing else was the domestic's bedchamber. I 
have seen a great many rooms of servants, many 
very nice ones too, but I was struck w r ith that 
one as never before in all my experience in man- 
sions palatial, handsome or ordinary. It w r as as 
completely furnished as anyone could desire for 
making the toilet. The floor was prettily car- 
peted, there was a rocking chair, undoubted evi- 
dence that the maid had time to sit down in her 
own bedroom and enjoy it. The window gave 
upon broad daylight with nothing to intercept 
the air or the light; the shades and sash curtains 
were fresh and dainty, and the entire room, with 
all its appointments, inviting enough to tempt the 
most fastidious person. It was not under a hot 
roof in summer, neither was it cold in winter — 
the season that I was there. It was quite as 
warm then as the room of the mistress of that 
dear little home. In fact, that servant's bed- 
chamber was more comfortable and far more at- 
tractive-looking than many rooms where decayed 
gentlemen and women are obliged to dwell when 
hard luck compels them to take up their abode in 
lodgings in a great city. And that unpretentious 
home was in one of the largest cities of these 
United States, but, of course, not in an expensive 
quarter. I had never before met the mistress. I 



i2o HOUSE AND HOME 

have never seen her since, but I understood very 
well why her one maid was devoted to her service 
and ready to do anything for her. The mistress 
had a sweet, generous nature not hypnotized 
by what " other people " were willing or 
unwilling to do for their domestics. She fol- 
lowed the trend of her own kindly disposition, 
and did her best for her servant's comfort. And 
the result was that, when I made my call there, 
the maid was taking all of her mistress' meals up 
to her of her own accord, because she thought 
that she was not strong enough to go up and 
down stairs. In remarking upon her servant's 
devotion the mistress did not seem to realize that 
she herself had evoked the best from her, by her 
own consideration for her comfort and happiness 
while under her roof. One who had gone to 
her service a total stranger soon became a loving, 
devoted handmaid, and the watchful guardian of 
her health. 

There is scarcely anyone so hopelessly slack 
and degenerate as not to be influenced by im- 
proved environment, and there are few, however 
daintily reared, so self-centered and established 
in nice and orderly ways, who are not apt to fall 
off and go steadily downwards until they finally 
are hardly recognizable by their old friends — if 



SERVANTS' ROOMS 121 

they are thrust away from all of life's refine- 
ments. Most improving influences often reach 
us through what the eye rests upon ; frequently 
they are more potent than what comes to us 
through the ear. 

It is too true, I know full well, that there are 
some young people who have been reared in lux- 
ury and who have always been surrounded by 
beautiful things, who are yet shockingly careless, 
even worse than untidy in their own apartments, 
notwithstanding they appear in public remarkably 
well groomed. But this is no reason why others 
who have never had a chance in life, and have 
never known any but rough, uncouth surround- 
ings, should be forever debarred from what might 
evolve and develop the best that is in them. 

This is not a plea for giving luxuries to serv- 
ants. It is more a protest, by contrast, against 
what has been the rule regarding the sort of 
places too often thought " good enough for 
them." 

Finally, they ought to have some closet room 
and good locks and keys to their bureau drawers, 
their bedchambers, and to their closet doors. The 
servant's room is " her castle " — it is the only 
place that she may call her own. Whatever 
privacy she has must be secured to her there. 



i22 HOUSE AND HOME 

The fact that she is a stranger and a sojourner 
in the house, by courtesy, entitles her to these 
things. 

It seems strange that one must even speak of 
the servant's bed to say that it should be good, 
in every respect a restful spot for a tired body, 
pleasant to look upon, and decent in all its ap- 
pointments. 

Here is an unquestionable fact: people who 
are constantly changing their servants are those 
who show them little or no consideration at any 
time, whether it be in the character of the rooms 
given to them, or when they are about their 
household work. But a pleasant room will be of 
little avail to one kept so steadily at work, 
from rising until bedtime, that she will feel too 
tired to wash and dress herself in the afternoon, 
or to keep her sanctum in order; or who is too 
much hurried, from one duty to another, ever 
to find time to sit down in her room to think her 
own thoughts, unalloyed with a sense of haste. 



n 



CHAPTER NINE 



tr 



SERVANTS' RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES 



Individual rights like private property. Servant not responsible 

for size of family or amount of work. Professor Robert E. 

Ely's words. A true story and a letter. 




XJ 



HOSE who are scrupulously- 
just acknowledge, and care- 
fully avoid interfering with, 
the rights of others, no matter 
in what relation they may 
stand to them. Whether it 
be as parent and child, or as employer and em- 
ployee, or in those relations reversed, the rights 
of all of us are as much our own as any private 
property which belongs to us, and whoever in- 
fringes on any of our rights, intentionally or 
unintentionally, robs us. 

A privilege is a favor which one may confer 
but yet has a perfect right to withhold, or which, 
with good cause, may even be withdrawn after 
having been granted. Not so a right. While a 
right may have to be established, if it has been 

123 



i2 4 HOUSE AND HOME 

infringed upon, it is none the less a right, and as 
much our own as anything that we possess un- 
molested by the unwarrantable interference of 
another. Almost all lawsuits, feuds, public and 
private, as well as the bloody wars that have dis- 
graced mankind, have been the result of infringe- 
ment upon someone's rights, in a word — injustice. 
Privileges are granted because of the kindly 
feeling of the granter, or possibly, at times, be- 
cause something is expected in return. Thanks 
are always due from the recipient who is favored 
with privileges. But we take our rights when- 
ever we are not hindered from so doing, and are 
under no obligations at all to express any thanks 
for being left in undisturbed possession of what 
belongs to us. The domestic enters household 
service with a verbal agreement regarding her 
duties and certain wages and leisure times stipu- 
lated for. These are her rights, and anyone who 
deprives her of any one of them is guilty of in- 
justice, and, if it be done without her free con- 
sent, is also open to the charge of having broken 
the contract. The maid has as good a right to 
refuse to wash, or iron, or cook, or sweep, after 
agreeing to do that work, as the employer has to 
deprive her of her day off, or her leisure hours 
because she happens to be in the house. Simply 



SERVANTS' RIGHTS 125 

because the girl is within call — when it is her 
time off — gives no employer even the privilege, 
much less any right, to call upon her for service 
at those times. On the contrary, no matter what 
the emergency, fire and flood excepted, if it be 
her time off a maid should not be asked to do 
anything without a definite acknowledgment 
that you are asking a favor of her, and intend to 
repay it, or else a bargain should be made for 
the extra service desired. And, further, the serv- 
ant has a perfect right to decline to sacrifice her 
precious leisure for any compensation whatever. 
When we realize how little personal freedom, 
or time to call their own, house servants, women 
especially, usually have, it is no wonder that they 
feel aggrieved to be called from their rooms, 
after they have spent many hours at continuous 
work, and their lawful period of respite has ar- 
rived. It is not a question of how all the house- 
work is to get done, neither is it a question of 
how the overburdened housewife is to get along, 
but it is a question of fair hours for one who is 
in no way responsible for the amount of house- 
work that has to be done in a large family with 
only one or two domestics, or in any case where 
the " hired help " is inadequate. " Put yourself 
il) her place " is a good motto for every jncon- 



i26 HOUSE AND HOME 

siderate housekeeper to con daily. Probably 
carelessness with regard to the rights of house- 
hold servants causes the greater part of the dis- 
satisfaction of those who "live out," and prevents 
others, who might be willing to experiment in 
self-support by going out to service, from enter- 
taining the thought. 

Only a little while ago in one of our papers 
nearly a page was devoted to the much-bruited 
subject of domestic service. Amongst other state- 
ments was the following: 

" The most bitter opponents to their daughters 
becoming servants are the mothers who have been 
domestics themselves. They place every obstacle 
in the way of having the girls trained, they make 
every effort to procure them work in factories or 
shops, and prefer that they should bring home 
less money than they could earn by living out." 

It behooves all householders to ask themselves 
the question: " Why this repugnance on the part 
of the mothers who have been domestics them- 
selves?" It speaks volumes to those who think. 

Along with her rights why should not a rea- 
sonably good servant be accorded some privileges 
in the home of her mistress? True, it is not her 
home. It is only her abiding or sojourning place 
for work. Her own room is the only spot where 



SERVANTS 1 RIGHTS 127 

she can feel at all at home. And that too often is 
a most uninviting, dreary place. If it be true, as 
is frequently said, that girls living out " have a 
good home, a comfortable room, nourishing food, 
and the protection of the household," why do 
they gladly give up so much that is desirable and 
seek to support themselves in almost any other 
way open to them ? There must be a strong 
reason for both the girls and their mothers, who 
know, from personal experience, just what are 
the advantages and the disadvantages about ser- 
vice in households generally, to be in such strict 
accord upon the subject. 

" In almost all other departments of the work- 
a-day world," said Professor Robert Erskine Ely 
in a recent lecture, " some phase of democratic 
feeling has filtered through except that of domes- 
tic service. This is still in the pall of feudal 
darkness. And it is the women who keep it so, 
and the women who must eventually emancipate 
it. Laws and laments, increased wages or gifts 
will not work enfranchisement. The rights of 
the woman domestic must be recognized by the 
woman employer as sacred and inalienable before 
the so-called ' servant problem ' can be solved. 
As matters stand now there is no system, no scale 
of hours or wages, no standard of any sort be- 



i28 HOUSE AND HOME 

tween mistress and maid, and the treatment of 
each by the other is left to the caprice of the tem- 
perament, and, too often, temper, and there is no 
redress but dismissal or ' leaving.' This is a 
state of affairs that ought not to exist among 
American women, cultured wives and mothers — 
the homekeepers of our great democratic na- 
tion." 

" Living out " is a very expressive term, be- 
cause those who are at domestic service, although 
under a home roof, are outside of home life. This 
isolation has naturally bred in the minds of the 
serving class an indifference towards those whom 
they serve equal to the average employer's indif- 
ference towards them. Contempt now meets 
contempt. Along with this unwholesome, in- 
human mental attitude of class towards class, a 
determination has developed amongst those who 
serve, to unite in demanding strict business trans- 
actions between mistress and maid. With busi- 
ness relations and the eight-hour law effective 
in households, all overtime service will have to be 
reckoned and paid for, and night work will then 
command double wages, as it docs elsewhere in 
the business world. Entertaining, unexpected or 
not, will cost more than it has heretofore. Ex- 
traordinary service in times of sickness will also 



SERVANTS' RIGHTS 129 



be taken into account, and, in fact, there will be 
a revolution in every household where one or 
more domestics have been employed. The serv- 
ant problem, therefore, assumes a new aspect, 
and appears to be more formidable than ever. 
As the supply now is hardly equal to the demand, 
the first question will erelong be: How many 
hours of service can we afford, and what can we 
do without altogether? 

Boarding — the respectable tramp life — will be 
resorted to by many. But all families cannot 
break up and board. The bare idea to some is 
repugnant. Not everyone takes kindly to the 
change from home privacy to perpetual publicity 
and contact with all sorts and conditions of men, 
women, and children that one meets in boarding 
houses. And no matter how many may choose 
to break up and board, that will not settle the 
vexed servant question. It will simply change 
it somewhat without improving the service. The 
more boarding houses and hotels we have, the 
greater number of servants will in them be 
spoiled for private houses. None but those who 
can do without domestics altogether can evade 
this new feature of the problem. As there is no 
cessation to housework, and few are so in love 
with it as to do it from choice, those who are 



130 HOUSE AND HOME 

wise and do not choose the hardest way out, will 
adopt the proposed new methods and promptly 
shape their household management in accordance 
with them. Then, perhaps, by degrees domestic 
service will become less objectionable. Women 
seeking self-support will not regard it as the last 
resort of the ignorant, incompetent lower class 
of wage-earners. Nor will they feel degraded 
by it when they do not sell their time by the 
week or month, or feel compelled to be constantly 
at the beck and call of a mistress who claims an 
account of almost every hour in the day. Not 
long ago the writer undertook to get an ex- 
cellent woman, whom she had long known, to 
return to domestic service, which had been her 
means of support until she married. Her mar- 
riage had not proved all that she and her friends 
hoped it would be. There were times when she 
had to go out to day's work to maintain her little 
home. The place offered was exceptionally de- 
sirable. The mistress was so kind and consid- 
erate that she seldom changed her domestics. 
The one whose place was then to be filled had 
lived with her, off and on, for over twenty years, 
having married and become a widow during that 
time. The wages were uncommonly high, the 
house very easy to live and work in, having 



SERVANTS' RIGHTS 131 

all modern conveniences, while the family con- 
sisted of a widow and her two kind and capable 
daughters. It was thought that it would be just 
the place for the woman and her little boy, whom 
it was proposed should accompany his mother. 
The offer of a nice, permanent place in a beau- 
tiful neighboring city combining the beauty of 
the country with the advantages of life in town, 
seemed to the writer worthy of the woman's 
serious consideration. Accordingly, a letter was 
sent making the proposition. Here is the reply: 

" Dear Miss 



" Received your letter. It is kind of you to 
think of me, but as for my taking a place again 
I have never been thinking of it. I go out to 
work at times, as I like to do, but it is nice to 
have a little home to go to in the evening. It 
is altogether different from being a servant. But 
I hope I shall never need to do that again. If so 
my plans would have to be different from taking 
the boy with me. But I hope it shall never be, 
as I am so happy in our little home.* I thank 
you all the same." 

This is the frank expression of an uncommonly 

* A little East Side flat, 



132 HOUSE AND HOME 

capable woman, who always had, and kept, good 
places — never changing except for an unavoidable 
reason. Years ago she said : " Oh, I long to have 
a little home. I do not want to be a servant all 
my life. I am willing to work harder than I do 
now, if I can only have a home." Deep down, 
ineradicable in every good woman's heart, is the 
longing for a home. For its sake much will be 
borne patiently that would be hard to endure 
amongst strangers. Assurance of periodic free- 
dom to go and come as they please, answerable 
to no one, the comfort of having one day in seven 
all to themselves, these are some of the strongest 
inducements to many for leaving domestic service 
and seeking other ways of earning a living. Most 
of us know that it has not been uncommon for 
a servant to be compelled to give up her rightful 
outing to suit her employer's convenience, espe- 
cially in case of unexpected entertaining or be- 
cause of illness in the family. And no one but 
the disappointed girl herself thought of the in- 
justice of encroaching upon her scant holiday 
time. Shall we wonder, then, that house servants 
have not appreciated those much vaunted " home 
advantages " ? Assured periodic freedom — the 
birthright of every human being in the work-a- 
day world — should be respected by employers ex- 



SERVANTS' RIGHTS 133 

actly as they would wish to have their own in- 
alienable rights respected by others. Then, too, 
that sharp line of demarcation, called in the 
Orient " caste," and having its counterpart— 
" social sphere " — in the Occident, often leads 
people to neglect common courtesy in dealing 
with their domestics, while at the same time ex- 
acting from them the strictest letter of the law of 
subservience towards themselves. This has been 
so common it has caused little or no remark even 
amongst kindhearted people — such is the force of 
habit or custom. But lately a halt has been called 
all along the line of household service. A " ser- 
vants' union " looms upon the horizon, and 
Massachusetts leads off with the initial step. 

Whoever doubts the rapid spread and final 
success of that movement is not awake to the 
signs of the times. The wheels of progress may 
be clogged, they cannot be stopped. It is com- 
mon for people to put stumbling blocks in the 
way of changes that in the end they are glad to 
see carried out. Eventually, the adoption of 
schedules of time and payment for all services at 
fixed rates will be as beneficial to the mistress 
as to the maid. It will bring about a better 
understanding between them. Neither one can 
then impose upon the other. Gradually a higher 



i34 HOUSE AND HOME 

class of self-supporting ones will be attracted into 
households, because business methods will dig- 
nify domestic service in the estimation of wage- 
earners. Shops and factories will no longer pre- 
sent special inducements because of stated hours 
for work and uninterrupted periods of freedom 
that have tempted many who might have gone 
into domestic service but for the confinement at- 
tending it. The new order will raise domestic 
service in the general estimation because the old 
contempt for those who choose such service will 
die. Modern business methods superseding feu- 
dal ideas will lift the " pall of darkness " from 
household service and solve the wearisome ser- 
vant problem, to the relief of all concerned. 
Then speed the day when fair business methods 
shall bind both mistress and maid ! 



U CHAPTER TEN U 



ENGAGING AND DISCHARGING 
SERVANTS 



Agreement regarding duties, wages, daily leisure time, and outings. 
Written reference sometimes misleading. Comparative stand- 
ards. Anecdote of lady of the old school. 



SEARCHING AND WRITING REFERENCES 

HEN about to engage one, who 
is a total stranger to you and 
your household, to become an 
inmate of your home, in any 
capacity, it is of the utmost 
importance to learn all about 
that person's character beforehand, and also to 
have a clear, unequivocal agreement at the outset 
between the employer and the possible employee 
as to the duties belonging to. the post to be filled, 
the wages to be paid, the outing times, the hours 
of leisure accorded daily; indeed everything 
relating to their mutual relations and obliga- 
tions should be understood when the bargain 

i35 




136 HOUSE AND HOME 

is first made. Having all details distinctly 
specified in the agreement tends to the 
promotion of harmony, and consequently spares 
both mistress and maid from an early 
rupture of their relations, as well as the 
inconvenience ensuing to both. By having this 
perfectly defined, although unwritten, contract 
made in advance, and then strictly adhered 
to by both parties concerned in it, they cannot 
fail to get along afterwards without friction or 
any serious differences of opinion regarding the 
maid's duties, rights, and possible privileges. 
(There is a distinct contrast between a servant's 
rights and her privileges, because her rights enter 
into the contract. The unamiable employer may 
deny all privileges to — but may not interfere 
with the rights of — her servant, unless willing to 
meet legal action for the contract broken.) 

While an experienced person, who is also a 
good judge of physiognomy, may sometimes ven- 
ture to engage a stranger without carefully 
searching her references, as a rule this is not a 
wise procedure. Young and inexperienced house- 
keepers should be especially guarded in these par- 
ticulars, and take no one into their homes without 
being assured that their records are good and 
their references reliable. Although written ref- 



ENGAGING SERVANTS 137 

crcnces are often misleading, and frequently 
make no mention of what we most desire to know 
before engaging a new domestic, yet a written 
reference may be of great assistance to one leav- 
ing a situation and to her next mistress in deter- 
mining whether she would better follow it up or 
desist from further consideration of the eligibility 
of the one offering it. However little may be 
conveyed to one reading a reference, it opens the 
way for seeking, and obtaining, definite informa- 
tion upon important points regarding the char- 
acter and competency of one whom we may think 
seriously of engaging. It is desirable to see or 
to get a reference from the last employer of an 
applicant, provided the maid was in that person's 
service any length of time. The best reference, 
of course, is usually one given by a mistress with 
whom the servant has stayed the longest time. 
That speaks w r ell for both of them. The first 
essentials for a desirable reference are hon- 
esty and sobriety, cleanliness of person and 
about work. These points proving satisfactory, 
it is worth while to inquire regarding 
her qualifications for the duties which will be 
hers in your house. It is a great compliment to 
all who serve that employers, almost without 
an exception, expect them to be good-tempered, 



138 HOUSE AND HOME 

under all circumstances. For this reason amia- 
bility is one of the primary traits looked for 
in a domestic. If a former mistress cordially 
recommends your applicant for honesty, sobriety, 
cleanliness, and amiability, and further pro- 
nounces her competent to fulfill what you expect 
to require of her, you may rest assured that, if 
her references may be relied upon, you have found 
a rara avis, and had better secure her without 
delay. Not every mistress or master of house- 
holds could come up to that standard. The first 
three qualifications are absolutely requisite, be- 
cause in the absence of any one of them there can 
be no rest for any responsible person in the home. 
But, we must all remember the great variety in 
people's ideas regarding these qualifications and 
especially with reference to cleanliness and com- 
petency. Education in these requisites is some- 
times fully as necessary for the mistress as it is 
for her maid. You can judge the value of a 
reference if you know the housekeeper who wrote 
it, and the appearance of the house and the man- 
ner of the mistress — when you go to a stranger 
for verbal information about a domestic — will 
sometimes show you the worth, or worthlessness, 
of what she may say in answer to your inquiries. 
It is well to take ill-natured or unamiable re- 



ENGAGING SERVANTS 139 

marks, made about a former servant, with several 
grains of salt, allowing for a possible lack of 
angelic traits in her sometime mistress, es- 
pecially if the servant gave the warning of depar- 
ture from her service. I personally know of a 
very competent person being kept nearly two 
years from getting a position because of the un- 
generous spirit manifested by the one upon whom 
she depended for credentials, when there was 
no fault to be found with her except because 
of her leaving a most exacting and unbearably 
disagreeable mistress whose reputation amongst 
the class who serve was such that, whenever she 
sent to the intelligence office for a new domestic, 
the agent could never persuade anyone who had 
heard of her to consider a position in her house 
notwithstanding she paid the highest wages given. 
It is much wiser to reserve to one's self the right 
to decide regarding the disposition of the maid if 
her honesty and capability are vouched for, and 
especially if, in addition, she be credited with 
cleanliness, for perhaps she was overtaxed or not 
treated with any kindly consideration — no matter 
how tired she was. Above all, if a mother tells 
you that she was impatient with the children, 
unless she was a nursery maid, let not that weigh 
one iota in your decision to try her in your own 



i4o HOUSE AND HOME 

home. We have all seen mothers who seemed to 
expect a woman of all work to be hampered in 
her work and to endure anything and everything 
from the children of the family, and even to bear, 
without a word of protest, seeing cleaning all 
undone in a few moments by the recklessness of a 
careless, untaught child. Parents cannot expect 
servants to be any more patient, if as much 
so, with their children's foibles and naughtiness 
than they would be themselves, in similar circum- 
stances, with other people's children. That is 
the best kind of a test, not what you will bear 
from your own child, but what you willingly 
overlook in the child of a stranger. Parents 
have no right to demand from a servant more 
patience with their own children than they would 
themselves evince toward the child of some total 
stranger who might be annoying to them. 

If a maid, before engaging, asks to see the 
room which you expect her to occupy, that is not 
an impertinence upon her part; it is one of her 
rights. If, again, she should think to make in- 
quiry regarding the conveniences which you have 
for her to do her work, that, too, is her right, 
and, moreover, it is far better for her to be ac- 
quainted with things which so nearly concern 
her before entering upon yowx service than 



ENGAGING SERVANTS 141 

to have her leave immediately because dissatisfied 
with her room or any lack of facilities for work- 
ing. She should be allowed to see the room and 
her questions should be answered with as much 
civility as you expect upon her part when you 
are questioning her. Neither employer nor ap- 
plicant can occupy a lofty pedestal while coming 
to an understanding and making an agreement. 
I am here reminded of an exceedingly aristocratic 
woman's saying, many years ago. She remarked: 
" People of assured position are never afraid of 
being courteous to others, however humble or 
plain they may be." And her daughter was one 
of the most beautiful characters I ever met. She 
had a grand establishment in New York before 
palatial mansions became as common as they now 
are. I well remember, whenever I was there on 
a visit, being impressed with her lovely demeanor 
toward all of her servants. She never failed to 
wish those who served the breakfast a pleasant 
good-morning as she entered the dining room. 
And at night, as she walked up her broad stair- 
way to go to her bed, her white hand resting on 
the balustrade, she always leaned over to say 
good-night to the man standing in the hall below. 
I never heard of anyone showing her the slightest 
disrespect, and there was a large domestic corps 



i 4 2 HOUSE AND HOME 

in her house. Her example was one of unvary- 
ing courtesy to all whom she met, regardless of 
their station in life. Only by according respect 
to others can one win unfeigned respect for one's 
self. Everywhere now the days of servile man- 
ners, because of serving, are swiftly passing; they 
are the remnants and tag-ends of old feudal 
times. Whenever and wherever servile manners 
are exacted they invariably veneer sentiments far 
from respectful in those who are compelled to 
" put them on." The most disrespectful servants 
that I have ever known were those who, in the 
presence of master and mistress, were most obse- 
quious. When not in their presence they recom- 
pensed themselves by getting all the fun they 
could at the expense of those who required them 
to koiu-tow before them. When respect is 
spontaneous, because genuine, faithful service is 
rendered with cheerful good will. There is but 
one way to insure sincere respect, and that is by 
character-building. Never was there a bank 
account long enough, nor an environment grand 
enough, to command respect, pure and simple, for 
the owner. 

Charles Wagner, in his book " The Simple 
Life," says: "Our social errors, our want of 
simplicity and kindness, all fall back upon the 



ENGAGING SERVANTS 143 

1 1 ■■!■■■■ ■■ ' ■■■■ ' ■ rm ■ . ii l. « ii ■■■■■ ■ ■ 1 ■■■»!- in ■» 

heads of our children. There are certainly few 
people of the middle classes who understand that 
it is better to part with thousands of dollars than 
to lead their children to lose respect for servants, 
who represent in our household the humble. 
Yet nothing is truer. Maintain as strictly as 
you will conventions and distances — that demar- 
cation of social frontiers which permits each one 
to remain in his place and to observe the law 
of differences. That is a good thing, I am per- 
suaded, but on condition of never forgetting that 
those who serve us are men and women like our- 
selves. You require of your servants certain 
formulas of speech and certain attitudes, outward 
evidences of the respect they owe you. Do you 
also teach your children and use yourselves man- 
ners towards your servants which show them that 
you respect their dignity as individuals, as you 
desire them to respect yours? Here w T e have in 
our homes an excellent ground for experiment 
in the practice of that mutual respect which ii one 
of the essential conditions of social sanity. I fear 
we profit by it too little. We do not fail to 
exact respect, but we fail to give it. So it is 
most frequently the case that we get only hy- 
pocrisy and this supplementary result, all unex- 
pected, the cultivation of pride in our children. 



144 HOUSE AND HOME 

_____ _____ . — ___> — ____• — — — — — — — — — — _ — — ■ _ — — > — 

These two factors combined heap up great diffi- 
culties for that future which we ought to be safe- 
guarding. . . . The day when, by your prac- 
tices, you have brought about the lessening of re- 
spect in your children, you have suffered a sen- 
sible loss. ... It seems to me that the 
greater part of us labor for this loss. . . ." 

When searching the references of one whose 
former employers are beyond your reach as far 
as personal interviews are concerned, it must then 
be done by correspondence. To avoid taxing the 
time of those to whom you write it is a good 
plan to prepare a series of questions which only 
require Yes or No in reply. Always leave space 
for whatever your correspondent may volunteer 
to write with reference to any special traits that 
may have appeared in the person you are inquir- 
ing about. A polite note, written upon a separate 
sheet, and as brief as courtesy w T ill permit, should 
accompany the questions, along with an addressed 
and stamped envelope, all sent under one cover. 

Reliable intelligence offices keep on file the ref- 
erences of those who are on their books. Persons 
applying for a domestic can have access to the ref- 
erences of anyone whom they are considering. 
No servant can be registered on their books who 
has not credentials for honesty and sobriety, or 



ENGAGING SERVANTS 145 

who has failed to keep an engagement to go to a 
place. Scarcely anything gives a good housewife 
more trouble than the carelessness of some other 
housewives about giving references. Conscien- 
tiousness and kindness should be united when one 
writes references for departing servants. Every 
good word possible to be said with truth should 
be said ; whatever they do well should be men- 
tioned. If they are totally incapable for the sort 
of situation that they are seeking, and you know 
it, there should be no hesitation about saying so, 
if your opinion should be asked. It is well to 
realize that one who cannot get along at all in 
houses of one sort may do very well in those of 
a different kind of management. Open the way, 
as far as you can, for servants to do their best 
at self-support without imposing upon anyone's 
inexperience or good nature. If you must dis- 
charge a domestic never do it in a moment of 
anger, even if at the time it seem to you justi- 
fiable. No matter what the provocation, wait 
until you can discharge without any sign of tem- 
per. When parting commend all that she has 
done well, and let her go feeling that she has 
your best w r ishes. If discharging because you are 
reducing expenses, or about to close your 
house, then you oive it to a good servant to 



146 HOUSE AND HOME 

do all in your power to get her into a desirable 
situation as soon as possible. But when a do- 
mestic has proved entirely incompetent, or in any 
way really objectionable for a nice family, it is 
very wrong to write her a reference that may 
possibly be the means of misleading others and 
induce them to take her into their houses to their 
sorrow. Very objectionable traits or utter in- 
competency are soon discovered, and few care 
anything about a reference given after a very 
brief term of service, unless, in that time, the 
servant proved herself extraordinarily capable 
and was highly recommended by a former em- 
ployer. 



V 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 



tj 



KITCHEN AND COOKING 



Ignorance the root of all our woes. A sequence. Chimney 

draughts. Kitchen no place for children. Transients in the 

kitchen. Housewife in her own kitchen. 



rr 




UST so long as people live prin- 
cipally upon cooked food, just 
so long will cooking and the 
kitchen be, as they now are, ex- 
ceedingly important features of 
every household, impossible to 
ignore or overlook with impunity. 

Many a good cause has been lost for the time 
being — and many a bright future has been dark- 
ened — by someone's indigestion. Indigestion is 
at the root of almost as many of humanity's 
troubles as selfishness itself. But, of course, 
ignorance is the root of them all. Whenever 
people knoiv better they avoid and escape the 
woes that come through ignorance. 

Without a good digestion health is impossible, 
and unhealth is misery. Poor cooking produces 

147 



148 HOUSE AND HOME 

about as much indigestion as bad temper. In fact 
it is a case of action and reaction. Indigestion, 
low spirits, bad temper. Bad temper, low spirits, 
indigestion., and so on interminably. Bad cook- 
ing, bad temper, low spirits all belong together. 
They propagate each other. Since poorly cooked 
food produces indigestion, poor cooking should be 
abolished. It can be abolished by all those who 
set about it by paying attention to having the very 
best possible cooking for each meal, however 
simple it may be. 

As kitchen and cook are inseparable, those two 
should be equally well provided for; the kitchen 
with ample conveniences, and the cook with good 
wages, and good materials for the work expected. 
No one need look for good cooking, even from a 
competent cook, if inferior materials be supplied 
or if the kitchen be unprovided with utensils suit- 
able for doing the cooking required. Nothing 
can be passed over that pertains to the kitchen ; 
from the chimney draught down to the larding 
needle someone must be responsible and pay at- 
tention. A kitchen should not only be brightly 
lighted and well ventilated, but also arranged 
with a view to sending kitchen odors up chimney 
and not throughout a house. For notwithstand- 
ing its importance, nobody in other parts of the 



KITCHEN AND COOKING 149 

house wants to be reminded of the culinary re- 
gion by cooking smells. With care this can be 
avoided. ** 

There are many devices that come for 
getting rid of kitchen odors that ought to be 
looked up by housekeepers and adopted. Some 
ranges have an opening above them with a slide 
that moves back letting the odors pass through 
to the sky, by way of the flue. 

To have wholesome cooking, however good 
the food purchased, the cook must be cheer- 
ful and enjoy the work. Cheerfulness cannot be 
expected in a cheerless, gloomy kitchen, they are 
incompatible. Neither can a cook, ever so com- 
petent, do justice to herself or send to the table 
palatable food, if stinted in any requisite for the 
work. And further, a cook should never be 
called away from her work to do anything out- 
side the kitchen. A moment's inattention, or a 
brief absence, may result in the spoiling of a lot 
of nice ingredients, in process of preparation for 
the table, and make extraordinary work for who- 
ever has to clean up after something has boiled 
over, or been badly burnt in the oven. Cooking 
demands concentration of thought as much as 
writing books or any profession. No one can 
cook and at the same time do things foreign to 



i5o HOUSE AND HOME 

that work without being in danger of wasting 
time and material. 

If a satisfactory cook asks for additional 
utensils, to which she has been accustomed or that 
will help her in her work, they should be 
promptly supplied and everything possible done 
to lighten the kitchen labors, for at best the cook 
leads a wearisome treadmill life. 

Housewives should be watchful and permit no 
one to go into the kitchen, when the cook is very 
busy, unless to help, and no one should be allowed 
to make any work for her. Above all things 
children ought to be taught that the kitchen is no 
place for them. My mother never permitted one 
of her children to go inside the kitchen. If she 
sent us with a message to the cook we were in- 
structed to stand at the kitchen door and deliver 
it, but not to go over the threshold, and to leave 
as soon as we had delivered the message. Besides 
being only fair to the cook not to permit her to 
be interrupted by children it is also safer for them 
not to be in the kitchen, for at any moment they 
might get hurt. 

Suppose older people go into the kitchen to do 
some useful thing — prepare a salad dressing or 
make cake — that is no reason for leaving disorder 
behind when through. There is always a right 



KITCHEN AND COOKING 151 



and a wrong way of doing everything. A dainty 
woman when at work keeps things trim about her. 
If making cake she never lays anything that 
needs washing, down on a table, but keeps a 
plate or a bowl for the egg-beater, spoons, and 
whatever else she may have in use. When she 
gets through, the table will be as clean as when 
she began. By a little care persons can avoid 
leaving untidy signs of the work they have done. 
While cake-making goes on things may just as 
well be kept in order. The boxes of flour and 
sugar should be wiped with a clean damp cloth 
before returning them to their places. When the 
cake is in the oven all the utensils that have been 
used should be in the cake bowl and that ought 
to be filled with water and left standing in the 
sink, or else washed immediately and put away. 
Never leave anything to dry on before dish-wash- 
ing time. That is wretched mismanagement, in- 
excusable in any but the totally inexperienced. 

Never lay eggshells on the table ; it is easier to 
wash a plate than it is to scrub a sticky spot on 
wood. Thoughtfulness for others, especially for 
those who work all day long, is a cardinal virtue. 
It is also, in the kitchen, a prime factor in reduc- 
ing the work to a minimum instead of multiply- 
ing it beyond reason. 



152 HOUSE AND HOME 

If you want to make cake in a great hurry and 
think that you have not time to be neat about it, 
then, before you begin, spread over the table a 
large sheet of strong paper and keep the mess on 
it. When you get through gather up the paper 
with all the droppings inside and burn it. Tran- 
sients going into a kitchen to do odd jobs ought 
to find out when it will be least inconvenient for 
the cook to have them there. The approach of 
some persons is enough to set a cook's nerves all 
throbbing at once, because they carry confusion 
along with them and make a great deal more 
work than they do. 

A little while ago I saw a review of a new 
book in which the writer had drawn a most entic- 
ing picture of window gardening in the kitchen. 
She seems to have supposed that a cook would 
have plenty of time for planting and weeding, 
etc. Her idea was that the cook could raise her 
own parsley and herbs and even have beautiful 
little rosy radishes peeping up between the green 
things all ready to be pulled for garnishing. It 
seemed to be the very poetry of kitchen garden- 
ing, but — it was far more poetical than possible; 
albeit it was written in prose, the poet's license 
was freely indulged therein and stretched to its 
uttermost limits, at least so it appears to me. In 



KITCHEN AND COOKING 153 

the first place the average cook has all that she 
ought to have to do without any new responsi- 
bilities being laid upon her. However con- 
venient it might be just to step to a window for a 
sprig of parsley or a few radishes — provided the 
pretty green and pink things should consent to 
grow and thrive in such adverse conditions — from 
what I know of cooks and their lives, my impres- 
sion is that without an exception they would 
much prefer to get their herbs and radishes from 
the market all tied up and ready for garnishing 
and seasoning, than to have their light obstructed 
by boxes of earth with a few sickly things strug- 
gling for air and leaning wistfully towards the 
light if they should have push enough to get above 
the soil. The nurture of the things would sub- 
tract from the cook's time for much-needed rest 
and recreation. No, no, let in every ray of light 
at the kitchen windows, study to reduce the work 
there — it already constitutes the major portion in 
most households — but leave kitchen gardening 
to the gardener, who makes a study of it and will 
furnish what you require cheaper than the cook 
can raise it. Give her a rocking chair, let her 
rock when she has time for it ; lend her the daily 
paper, a magazine or a book occasionally, if she 
has time to look at them, but leave window 



i54 HOUSE AND HOME 

gardening for those who have plenty of leisure. 
However aesthetic it may seem when read about, 
it will not be desirable in the kitchen from the 
economical or any other viewpoint. 

Those who expect nice pastry from their cook 
should have a marble slab in the kitchen for that 
work. Good pastry cannot be made unless it is 
kept icy cold until it is baked. It requires the 
two extremes of cold and heat ; but, until it goes 
to the oven, which should be extra hot, pastry, to 
be edible, must be as cold as ice water for mixing, 
hard butter for enriching, and the marble slab for 
rolling out, can make it. 

The table in the center of the kitchen and con- 
venient to the range should be neatly covered with 
zinc. This saves labor, as the zinc absorbs no 
grease and is easily kept bright and clean with hot 
water and sapolio or bon ami ; the latter is an 
improvement upon sapolio, and preferred by 
workers generally. Except in very elaborate 
kitchens where a chef presides and must have 
copper utensils, agate ware is the best for those 
who cannot afford the new porcelain-coated iron 
in pure white, or the beautiful aluminum ware 
that comes. Every housekeeper who likes to go 
into her kitchen to do nice cooking should 
have her own utensils and allow no one else to 



KITCHEN AND COOKING 155 

use them. She can then be certain that they are 
clean and ready for her whenever she chooses to 
make any dainty for the table. The pure white 
ware called " The Elite " is beautiful enough to 
make one want to cook occasionally, using those 
utensils of course. 

The kitchen needs at least three double boilers 
of different sizes, and for special purposes. They 
are a great comfort to a cook because they spare 
her from much anxiety when crowded with work, 
as nothing ever burns in the double boiler. It 
must of course be kept supplied with water in the 
lower compartment when on the range. 

Beside the range should hang a metal rack for 
holding cooking spoons and forks. It needs 
cleaning as often as anything used in the kitchen, 
but it is a great convenience and prevents soiling 
a table when the cook is attending to something 
that is over the fire. 

To gauge a cook's judgment notice her bread- 
making. If invariably good, you may rest assured 
that she has judgment enough to be trustworthy 
as a cook. If her bread is sometimes delicious 
and at other times poor, you may be certain that 
she cooks by guesswork — trusts to luck, so-called, 
and lacks judgment. This applies to all who 
do any cooking, whether the housewives them- 



156 HOUSE AND HOME 

selves or the paid servant. It is a trustworthy 
test. 

Rules applying, and requirements and duties 
belonging, to a kitchen where there is a 
hired cook, apply with equal force when a house- 
wife does her own cooking. But it is natural to 
suppose that where the mistress herself cooks she 
will be, in proportion to her education and gen- 
eral culture, more dainty in every way than any- 
one who hires out as a cook could possibly be. 
Because of her good taste and cleanliness and her 
superior advantages in training, her kitchen will 
always be neater and more inviting than that 
of one of the class whose opportunities in life 
are altogether restricted and who, for the same 
reason, is obliged to earn a living in what is 
regarded as a menial's situation. But the house- 
wife to whose manifold and varied duties and re- 
sponsibilities cooking for a family is added, should 
be as good and considerate to herself as she would 
have to be to an exceedingly competent woman 
in her service as a paid cook — if she wished to re- 
tain her. While studying to do everything in the 
best manner she should also seek every means to 
lighten her labors and never permit herself to 
become a kitchen drudge, but, on the contrary, 
prove to herself and her family by her dainty w T ay 



KITCHEN AND COOKING 157 



of doing everything that even kitchen work may 
be made something of a fine art. 

Charlotte P. Gilman, in her book " Woman 
and Economics" truly says: " House service 
keeps the housewife on her feet from dawn till 
dark. Women work longer and harder than 
most men, and not solely in maternal duties." 

This proves something radically wrong in our 
social conditions. Everybody in good health 
ought to work, but no one should be compelled to 
work laboriously week in and week out. The 
household where any one woman does this is in a 
sadly inharmonious condition, no matter whether 
the unhappy drudge be a member of the family 
or a paid stranger within the gates. \ 



u 



CHAPTER TWELVE 



u 



TO OBTAIN AND RETAIN THE IDEAL 
SERVANT 




Ideal twentieth-century servant. Ideal employer. Human and 
humane relations. Good manners. Evolution of ideal em- 
ployer followed by that of ideal servant. 

XJ 

T seems trite to state that ideals 
depend upon the stage of soul- 
development of the human being, 
nevertheless the truth needs reitera- 
i tion. For ideals are as various as 
are individual characters and they 
advance with the spiritual unfoldment of 
individuals. The ideals of man in the savage 
state are very far below those of man civilized, 
and the ideals of mankind generally in the present 
stage of humanity's march are far below the 
altruistic ideals now just coming into our range 
of vision. 

Simply stated, the ideal twentieth-century serv- 
ant must be honest, sober, competent, respectful, 
obedient, patient, and steadfast — have the " stay- 

158 



THE IDEAL SERVANT 159 

ing " trait. These requirements would probably 
constitute that ideal servant's equipment which 
might justify our millionaire friend in naming 
the one so qualified in his will. Having discov- 
ered and obtained that rara avis — in fact ma- 
terialized the ideal servant — the next equally 
important question is how to retain the rare 
bird. 

The method is easier stated than followed. 
The master or mistress of such an invaluable 
auxiliary in the household ought to be as well 
equipped for his or her role, therefore the ideal 
employer should be, of course, honest, sober, kind, 
considerate, courteous, appreciative, just, and also 
steadfast, having " retaining qualities." 

By steadfast on the servant's side is meant one 
who remains long in one place, sometimes even at 
personal inconvenience. By steadfast on the em- 
ployer's side is meant one who keeps a good serv- 
ant even at personal inconvenience, and who could 
not think of closing a house and discharging any 
or all hands without careful thought for the well- 
being of every reasonably good servant. 

The root of most of our domestic friction lies 
in the utter indifference of average employers as 
to what becomes of those in their service when 
they no longer need them. Servants realize and 



i6o HOUSE AND HOME 

feel keenly this mental attitude and are conse- 
quently alert to find out the plans of their em- 
ployers, in order, if possible, to forestall discharge 
by securing new places for themselves in time to 
avoid being out of situations at most inconvenient 
seasons. For it is not uncommon for a servant 
to be discharged because of an employer's changed 
plans, and often, too, without even a month's 
wages in advance to tide over the emergency. 
This is one serious fault of many who have ample 
means to do otherwise; in fact they are the 
greatest offenders of all in this respect. It is sur- 
prising to hear those who do not hesitate about 
closing their houses for the sake of taking a long 
pleasure-trip, regardless of thus throwing many 
servants out of employment, inveigh at the 
" meanness " of servants they would fain keep, 
for leaving them suddenly to secure more de- 
sirable and probably more permanent places, or 
because they know that if they do not go at a cer- 
tain season it will be more difficult for them to 
get settled in situations when the employer is quite 
ready to part with them. 

The householders who desire to obtain and 
retain ideal service must earn a good reputation 
amongst the serving class, and also at the agencies 
through which they seek to procure servants. 



THE IDEAL SERVANT 161 



This needs more emphasis than many of them 
dream. 

There are houses so conspicuous for the pro- 
prietor's utter lack of consideration for their 
domestics' comfort that the mention of them 
causes a general shoulder shrug; and capable 
servants cannot be induced to enter them unless 
by a series of misfortunes they are in sore need of 
situations. Written references are, by no means, 
the only kind. It would surprise some who are 
frequently changing their servants could they 
hear the concise characterization given of their 
domestic economy by those who know all about 
their household management without ever hav- 
ing lived with them. And it is safe to state, with- 
out fear of contradiction from any experienced 
one, that where you hear of constant friction in 
the domestic department of any house, those who 
hold the reins of government are themselves un- 
worthy of good service. Inexorable law is ever, 
and everywhere, at work, and noble-hearted em- 
ployers attract to themselves as good service as 
can be found. Those seeking situations are eager 
to enter service where reasonable consideration is 
shown to the domestic corps. The house where 
fair wages are paid without the exaction of ex- 
tortionate demands for service, where the table is 



162 HOUSE AND HOME 

known to be wholesome and good, and where no 
servant's outing times are invaded for the house- 
hold convenience, will have a waiting list, from 
which a choice can be made, ever ready to step in 
and fill vacancies, and vacancies there will not 
be of frequent occurrence. 

The writer has kept house upon almost every 
scale, run the gamut, so to speak, of simple, ele- 
gant, and palatial housekeeping, and feels this 
statement to be true from every point of view. 
It is not the proprietor's wealth that makes his 
house desirable or his service sought by the wage- 
earner. It is something finer far than any 
grandeur of environment. It is, in one word, 
character, and there is many a simple, unpreten- 
tious home where the domestic arrangements are 
so just and kind to all that peace breathes 
throughout, even along with nice economy. 

When human and humane relations become the 
rule between servers and served, when heart 
culture, not convention, governs the manners of 
all, a new and beautiful order will displace the 
old disorder still too prevalent amongst enlight- 
ened people. 

The fact that one serves another for pay is no 
reason that one should be altogether subservient 
to that other. A thoughtful and well-known 



THE IDEAL SERVANT 16 



.> 



writer of to-day says: " It is not what is vulgar 
within us, but what is noblest, that asserts itself 
in the face of offensive pride; it is manhood that 
is w T ounded ; it is not wealth, but the spirit of the 
wealthy, that must be arraigned." We might 
carry the thought further, and say it is not ser- 
vice in any department of life that is hard, 
but it is the usurping spirit of the served that 
embitters many lives and chokes a desire to serve 
well. 

Faithful service not only entitles the one serv- 
ing to fair and prompt compensation, but to in- 
variable courtesy also. The tone and manners of 
those with whom we come in contact make or mar 
life for us all. Truly good manners are the re- 
sult of heart culture and they are not put on and 
off like best and second-best clothing for special 
environment or favored associates, albeit many 
seem to think otherwise. 

Every economic problem — the servant question 
included — now vexing the so-called civilized 
world will be solved to general satisfaction when 
Charles Reade's motto, " Put yourself in his 
place," is adopted and actualized in the lives of 
the ruling class. It is only another version of 
the standard given to mankind two thousand 
years ago, by the great type character of the 



i6 4 HOUSE AND HOME 

Christian world, and fitly named the " Golden 
Rule," since, thus far, it has been regarded as 
altogether too precious for everyday use. 

The conclusion of the whole matter is this: 
With the evolution of the ideal employer will 
come, in natural order, the evolution of the much- 
talked-of, dearly-longed-for " Ideal servant." 

Note. — This chapter was written expressly for the Philadelphia 
" Press," at the time that the Chicago millionaire, John Farson, was 
advertising his offer to bequeath one million dollars to the ideal ser- 
vant. Since it is impossible for anyone to be many times a million- 
aire and an ideal human being at the same time, our Chicago friend 
will have to wait for another incarnation before he finds the ideal 
servant. By that time he may have become one himself. 



XJ CHAPTER THIRTEEN U 



TRAINING A MAID IN TABLE- 
SETTING 



She must be neatly dressed. Table linen. Laying the cloth ac- 
curately. Side table for dessert. Chair placing. Hot 
plates for things hot. 



XJ 



£ 




? S"? PON a leisure day give the maid 
her first lesson. Have her 



I come to you neat and trim, 
J her hair in perfect order, she 
i wearing a clean white apron, 
its every fold clearly defined. Let her under- 
stand, at the outset, that this is obligatory upon 
one entering the dining room. Give her the rea- 
son. Everything connected with food-serving 
should be scrupulously clean. 

First introduce her to the table linen. Call 
her attention to the various sizes, patterns, and 
uses of each kind. Give her a notebook with all 
legibly written out for reference as you proceed 
and later when sheiis doubtful. 

If instructed kindly and carefully, she will 
165 



166 HOUSE AND HOME 

soon learn to distinguish between the different 
styles and uses of each. Show her the little 
doilies, stating their various uses. Do likewise 
with side-table covers, tray cloths, centerpieces, 
and every article of table linen. Pause to ques- 
tion her. Let her repeat slowly what you have 
taught her. When she makes a mistake correct, 
quietly, without disconcerting her. 

Let her see that you maintain perfect order — 
have a place for everything and keep everything 
in its place — that you could lay your hand on 
anything required suddenly, even in the dark. 

Next take her to the pantry. Show her the 
china and glass, then the cutlery and silver, all in 
precisely the same way ; give the name and use of 
each article. When questioning her, remember 
the way children are reviewed in school and how 
school examinations are conducted. Do not ex- 
pect, after one lesson, that she will be able to an- 
swer one hundred per cent, of your questions. 
Be as patient with your pupil learning the mys- 
teries of your menage as you expect your chil- 
dren's teachers to be with them in the schoolroom. 
By practice only can anyone become expert at any- 
thing. Therefore, with her assistance, begin to 
lay the table. Permit her to do all she can under 
your guidance. Let her remove, fold, and put 



TABLE-SETTING 167 

away the colored cloth used between meals on the 
table, and get the white felt cover to spread over 
the table. See that ft hangs the same all around. 
Explain w T hy it is used. Always give a reason 
for care-taking. It makes an impression upon the 
memory. Describe the table linen desired for 
that occasion and let her get it. If she seems 
puzzled, show her again. Leave the napkins out 
on the sideboard to be ready when needed. Take 
the greatest pains in laying the cloth. Place it 
folded on the table's center. Open it carefully 
until it lies double lengthwise, its middle fold in 
exact line with the lengthwise middle of the table. 
If this initial step be taken inaccurately, the 
whole appearance of a table will be spoiled. 
The middle fold in perfect line as directed, a cloth 
will hang evenly everywhere from the table's 
edge. 

For a dinner of six covers, as the places are 
named, let the maid set one plate at each end of 
the table and two at each side, equidistant the 
one from the other. (Cold plates remain upon 
the table until after the oysters and soup have 
been served.) 

On each plate lay a napkin, the corners of all 
pointing alike on every plate. At the right, be- 
side each plate, lay as many knives as the courses 



168 HOUSE AND HOME 

will require — the spoon for soup outside the 
knives — the oyster fork last, across all, its point 
resting on the plate's edge. 

At the left of each plate lay all the other forks 
to be used with or without knives. The small 
silver should lie in exact line with the table's 
edge, all handle-ends even, about half an inch 
equidistance preserved between them. Above 
the knives, at the right, near the plate, stand the 
water glass and whatever glasses will be required 
for wines — the smaller around the larger glasses. 

Flowers should occupy the table's center or else 
a jardiniere of growing ferns. When neither of 
these can be had a dish of fruit, tastefully inter- 
spersed with shining green leaves, may be substi- 
tuted. In these days almost everyone has a pretty 
floral or green decoration suitable for a center- 
piece, therefore fruit can be arranged in two or 
four dishes and placed around the flowers — the 
tablecloth always exposed between. Never crowd 
things on the table. 

Bonbons, olives, celery, and salted nuts in small 
glass dishes should be within reach of the diners, 
but placed in symmetrical order. No dish should 
be full ; leave at least an inch of the glass exposed 
above the line occupied by little dainties. 

If individual salt-cellars are used, the salt 



TABLE-SETTING 169 

should be smooth, free from lumps, not a grain 
upon the edges. If large salt-cellars are used, 
place them at the table's corners, their spoons 
lying across — each handle towards the outside of 
the table. 

When soup is served by the hostess, there 
should be a large napkin laid at her place for the 
tureen to stand upon. Place the soup-ladle 
across in front of the tureen, its handle towards 
the right. 

A like precaution, the napkin, should cover 
the other end of the table, for the carver — the 
carving knife and fork before the carver, the 
knife's handle at the right, that of the fork at 
the left, the blade of the knife and the tines of 
the fork crossing beside, but not touching each 
other. 

Cover the side table with a white cloth and 
there arrange the dessert service. Finger-bowls 
one-third full of cold water should rest upon 
dessert plates — a little doily between each plate 
and bowl. A slice of lemon, a leaf of rose 
geranium, or a few T English violets floating on the 
water may be used, but these are not obligatory. 

Put a knife at the right on each dessert plate, 
a fork at the left, across the front a dessertspoon. 

Be sure to have on the side table, ready before- 



170 HOUSE AND HOME 

hand, extra silver and napkins in case of an acci- 
dent occurring, thus avoid embarrassment 
through an unexpected lack of something sud- 
denly needed. 

The coffee set should be on the sideboard or 
side table, a small tray also, with the sugar bowl 
and cream ewer, because all do not drink black 
coffee. 

Chairs should be placed as soon as the table is 
laid. Shortly before dinner is announced put 
the dinner rolls in the napkins and fill the glasses 
with fresh water, a little cracked ice in each be- 
fore pouring the water. 

If bread is used instead of rolls, cut it in slices 
two inches thick, each slice again cut in halves, a 
piece in each napkin. 

Have a plate of cut bread, or rolls, on the side 
table to offer whenever required. Beside the cut 
bread place a fork for the waitress to help anyone 
without touching the bread herself. 

One thing requiring emphasis is this: Hot 
plates are essential for all viands and vegetables 
served hot. When the first hot plates come it is 
time to exchange the cold ones. But no one 
should be allowed to sit without a plate, either 
hot or cold, before him, even if he is letting a 
course pass. 



TABLE-SETTING 171 

Scrupulous care should be observed in prepar- 
ing the table for the dessert. Have a fork and 
plate convenient for taking up all the pieces of 
bread or rolls before removing crumbs, and a 
crumb-scraper and tray also, or else an unfolded 
napkin, crumpled softly, for taking off every 
crumb. ^ 

However simple the table when ready and dur- 
ing a meal's progress, it will express the degree 
of refinement reached by the presiding genius. 
After a meal again will it silently testify as to the 
breeding of the family. For a table ever so 
neatly set soon becomes unsightly, if those around 
it pay no regard to maintaining its order. N 

Returning to our main subject, training, re- 
member that only through practice can one be- 
come proficient in any line of work. In another's 
words: "Just consider how we are taught any- 
thing practical. It is not by hearing about mak- 
ing shoes that a man becomes a shoemaker, but by 
trying to make them." The housewife must 
know how before she can teach her maid. In 
giving instruction, " Let patience have its perfect 
work in thee." 



V 



CHAPTER FOURTEEN 



TRAINING A MAID FOR WAITING ON 
TABLE 



Written menu posted in pantry and kitchen. Dish washing. 

Care-taking. Practical lesson. Plate changing. Filling 

glasses. The sprawling knife and fork. 




pOWEVER simple the dinner to 
be served, the menu should be 
written and posted in the 
pantry as well as in the kitchen. 
Then there can be no mis- 
understanding about it or 
about the dishes that will be required by the cook 
or in the dining room. By example as well as 
by precept a thoughtful, methodical mistress 
trains her maids in thoughtfulness and in meth- 
odical habits for all their work and thus 
makes everything, in the long run, easier for 
all concerned. The written menu prevents 
vexatious blunders for which, without it, 
no one can be held accountable; it also pre- 
serves peace, avoids many useless words, after a 

172 



WAITING ON TABLE 173 

dinner has gone agley, and may even spare both 
mistress and maid the trouble of parting and the 
consequent annoyance of changing, one her situa- 
tion and the other her domestic. 

During the instruction of a new maid it is well 
to take nothing for granted, as far as her previous 
experience may be concerned. Whatever she has 
already learned that is desirable to continue will 
be quickly manifested as you proceed. Suppose 
the menu be the same that we used in the chapter 
devoted to table-setting. 

MENU. 

Oysters on the Half Shell, 

Soup, 

Roast and Vegetables, 

Salad , 

Dessert, 

Fruit, 

Coffee. 

The table set in due season, the sideboard and 
side table all in readiness, the pantry should also 
be prepared beforehand for receiving the plates, 
knives, forks, and spoons, as the courses are 
changed in such an orderly way as to facilitate 
the dish-washing. At the same time it will be 
done in the best manner to preserve the silver's 



i74 HOUSE AND HOME 

brightness, protect ivory or pearl handles, and do 
the washing and putting away of the china and 
glass expeditiously, with the least risk of damag- 
ing anything. 

Before the family is called to dinner the pantry 
should be free from whatever will in any way ob- 
struct the maid in taking in or removing the 
courses. Have two large, strong pitchers filled 
with hot, soapy water standing ready to receive 
all the small silver in one, and knives and cutlery 
in the other. Care should be observed to avoid 
wetting the handles when they are of ivory or 
any material that can be defaced by remaining 
wet. 

There is a fine art which is neglected by the 
majority of people, albeit it is one that all can 
cultivate if only they will. It is the art of tak- 
ing care of, while using, things. Many a scantily 
furnished house and many a poor-looking table 
result from carelessness in the use of household 
belongings. 

As the maid removes plates and small silver for 
a change of courses she can quickly transfer the 
silver to one pitcher and put all knives and cutlery 
in the other — their handles up and entirely out of 
the water. The writer knows a nice housekeeper 
who is still using the ivory-handled silver knives 



WAITING ON TABLE 175 

that she had when she began housekeeping over 
forty years ago. 

In clearing a table plates should never be 
heaped one upon another in the dining room. 
Even after they reach the pantry they ought to 
be set down separately until there is time to 
free each one of any leavings. By having a 
garbage pail under the basin, or a large, strong 
bowl beside it ready for receiving the scraps, the 
plates can be easily scraped, then piled in the basin 
with hot water drawn upon them. By following 
this method, when they have to remain unwashed 
while the maid is otherwise engaged, nothing will 
dry upon them while standing — the water pre- 
vents it — they will be easily and quickly cleansed 
with less risk of breaking. 

If familiarized with her duties the maid 
will be neatly dressed and entirely ready when 
the moment for serving dinner arrives. The 
great secret of doing anything well is first 
knowing how to do it, and next knowing that 
you know how. The first is absolutely essential, 
the second gives one confidence and its twin senti- 
ment — serenity. The maid thus equipped will 
be easy in mind and therefore level-headed while 
performing her part. 

Where there are invited guests all the diners 



176 HOUSE AND HOME 

assemble in the drawing room before the ap- 
pointed dinner hour. It is customary to an- 
nounce the dinner instead of ringing a bell. 

The maid should be given a practical lesson to 
assure her doing this very simple thing with pro- 
priety. Let her instructor exchange places with 
her for a few moments. Send her to the draw- 
ing room, then follow, and, standing at the door 
entrance, say quietly: " Madam, dinner is 
served." At once return to the dining room and 
take a stand at the back of the hostess' chair. 
Request the maid to come and take a seat, that she 
may learn how to seat anyone. As she approaches 
draw the chair back just far enough for her to 
pass in between it and the table. As she sits 
down move the chair gently forward under her, 
so that she will be seated easily without touching 
it herself. Then go yourself to the drawing 
room and let her announce the dinner to you — 
in precisely the same way that you did in giving 
her the lesson — and return, in advance of you, to 
the dining room and seat you when you arrive. 
One practical lesson is of more value than many 
experiments with only verbal instructions and 
verbal corrections. 

As soon as you are seated and have taken the 
bread and napkin off your plate, she should be 



WAITING ON TABLE 177 

ready to set an oyster-plate before you. Let your 
laying down the fork on the plate be the signal 
for her to change the plate, precisely as if it had 
been used and must be washed later. Next let 
her bring the soup-tureen, place it, remove the 
cover carefully, turning it upside down as she 
takes it off to carry it to the side-table, because 
if there were hot soup in the tureen there 
would be drops of moisture on the inside of the 
cover that might fall upon the tablecloth or 
the floor when she is carrying it away. She 
should return immediately to hold the soup plate 
conveniently near for you to put a ladle of soup 
in it and then set it down on the cold plate before 
you. Soup plates should not be more than two- 
thirds full to be passed with no danger of an ac- 
cident. When served by the hostess the person 
at her right hand gets the first helping. When 
you lay the soup spoon down in the plate that 
is the signal for her to take it away and, after 
she has removed the soup-tureen, bring on the 
next course. 

She should place the meat platter first, then 
bring and hold the hot plate with a napkin in 
her hand under it while you appear to put a slice 
of the roast upon the plate. Immediately before 
setting it down before you she should take up the 



178 HOUSE AND HOME 

cold plate — making the exchange so deftly that 
you will not be one moment without a plate of 
some sort, hot or cold, before you. This order 
obtains throughout the entire service of a well- 
ordered dinner. 

Setting the cold plate aside, she immediately 
passes the vegetable dishes uncovered, a table- 
spoon in each one, and so placed that when she 
holds the dish for you to help yourself the handle 
of the spoon will be directly towards your right 
hand, for you to take it with entire ease. When 
passing vegetables the bowl of the spoon should 
be ready, holding one helping. In handing any- 
thing for people to help themselves the waitress 
goes invariably to the left. The propriety and 
convenience of this will be promptly recognized 
because the diners are thus enabled to use the 
right hand in serving themselves. Carelessness 
in this one particular marks the inexperienced 
and absolutely untrained waitress. But in fill- 
ing glasses, which the maid does herself, she goes 
to the right and fills without taking them up. 
No glass should be filled above a half-inch from 
its brim. Teach her to avoid letting a drop fall 
upon the cloth. As she stops pouring she should 
touch the edge of the glass with the spout of the 
pitcher or the mouth of the decanter, or bottle, 



WAITING ON TABLE 179 

thus leaving the last drop in the glass just 
filled. 

When you lay your knife and fork side by side 
down upon your plate the waitress knows that she 
may make the exchange. (It is awkward, there- 
fore bad form, to lay the knife and fork down 
sprawling, and those who do so risk an accident 
and may confuse even an accomplished waitress.) 
The next course being salad, the maid, w T hen ex- 
changing, gives you a cold plate. Salad is 
handed in the same manner as the vegetables, 
the salad fork and spoon-handles towards the 
diner, and, when there is actual service, the fork 
with a few leaves of salad upon it and the 
spoon, ready to hold them in transit from the 
bowl to your plate. But, if the salad is some- 
thing chopped or cut, then the spoon should be 
holding a portion. Every dish should be held 
near, and low, enough for one to serve one's self 
with ease. This cannot be too strongly empha- 
sized. Tell the learner that all these seeming 
trifles, carefully observed, constitute a. deft and 
competent waitress. It is a good plan to have the 
waitress use a napkin, all the time, partially un- 
folded and covering her hand while the dish at 
the same time rests upon it. 

During the progress of the dinner, whenever 



i8o HOUSE AND HOME 

anyone wants more bread the waitress should be 
alert to see — and supply it from the plate upon 
the side table. She should bring the plate of 
bread with a fork to the diner's right side and, 
using the fork herself, put a piece of bread down 
on the*tablecloth beside the diner. (The height 
of good service is where one's wants are antici- 
pated and the waiting is at once attentive and un- 
obtrusive. ) 

There are two ways of serving roasts: one 
where carving is done on the dinner table, the 
other where it is done at the side table by the 
waitress. There is an advantage in the latter 
method, because then each person can make a 
selection according to his or her taste for rare 
or well done, white or dark, meat. When this 
way of serving is followed, slices of the roast 
should be daintily placed on a moderate-sized 
platter easy to hold and to pass around. If 
carving is done on the dinner table, the maid 
should stand at the carver's left and take away 
each plate as he lays a piece of meat upon it. In 
the proper order of helping she sets the first 
down before the host's right-hand guest, and 
then continues on around the table from that 
point until she returns to the carver, who is the 
last one helped. This simple method avoids con- 



WAITING ON TABLE 181 

fusion and the possibility of overlooking any- 
one. 

While the diners are discussing the roast and 
vegetables the maid stands quietly, but watch- 
fully, near the hostess, observing quickly when 
anyone seems ready for a second helping, and 
promptly removes plates of those who lay down 
the knife and fork. 

Salad being the last course in our little menu 
before dessert, when all the plates have been re- 
moved she clears the table of everything belong- 
ing to that part of the dinner already served, 
but leaves all decorations, bonbons, and other 
little dainties and everything belonging to the 
dessert. Of course all glasses remain until 
the dinner is over. At this time the large nap- 
kin at the carver's place and the one under 
the soup tureen are taken away so carefully as 
not to drop a single crumb. This is done by first 
putting each of the four corners toward the center 
of the napkin and then deftly gathering it up, 
while keeping the corners in the napkin's center, 
and allowing no part to fall open. This be- 
comes easy after two or three experiments that 
should be made beforehand when no meal is in 
progress. Next in order use the plate and fork 
for removing all pieces of bread left by the 



i82 HOUSE AND HOME 

diners. Then every crumb should be carefully 
removed with a crumb-scraper and tray. If these 
are not to be had, a large dinner plate and an 
unfolded and softly crumpled napkin serve that 
purpose. 

When the table is free from all signs of the 
dinner and in perfect order it is ready for the 
dessert, whatever it may be. In bringing the 
plates, already arranged for this part of the din- 
ner on the side table, she should be careful to set 
each one down with the knife side of the plate 
at the right of each person ; by so doing every- 
thing else will be in its proper place ; the fork at 
the left, the spoon across the front of the plate. 
Each person — when the plates are before all — 
quietly sets the finger bowl on the table in front 
of the plate and the doily, at the same time be- 
tween the bowl and the tablecloth, taking up as 
little room as possible with individual con- 
venience and never intruding upon the neighbor's 
space at right or left. The dessert is then passed 
in the same way as all that has already been 
served. When there is pudding or a pie they 
should be cut, before passing, and a spoon or a pie 
knife should be under a piece ready each time it 
is handed. The maid has time to place them as 
she leaves one already helped to go to the next. 



WAITING ON TABLE 183 

Ice cream is handed in the same way ; glass plates 
are generally used for it. They are always set 
upon the china dessert plate, then the doily is 
under — and the finger bowl upon — the glass 
plate. 

Fruit is last before the black coffee, which is 
served in very small cups about two-thirds full. 
Sugar and cream are passed for people to help 
themselves. After-dinner coffee is usually served 
without cream as most people like it sweetened 
only, but, as it is always possible for someone to 
prefer a little cream too, a considerate hostess 
will see that it is offered. 

The manner of holding anything for people to 
help themselves is one mark of a good waitress. 
Without awkwardness she should hold everything 
loiv enough for people to help themselves without 
reaching, near enough to avoid spilling, and per- 
fectly steady while waiting for them to take what- 
ever they desire. No matter how inattentive a 
guest may be the waitress never speaks when on 
duty, but the ever-watchful hostess says politely, 
to the seemingly unconscious one, as the maid 
waits, " Will you not take — " mentioning at the 
same time whatever the waitress may be holding. 

Some prefer to have the coffee after they leave 
the table. In that case it is taken to the drawing 



i8 4 HOUSE AND HOME 

room when all have assembled there. In this 
each mistress suits herself. 

No one should rise from the dinner table until 
the hostess makes the move by rising herself. 
Emergencies may compel a transgression of this 
rule of good table manners. The person obliged 
to leave should ask to be excused and go as quietly 
as possible, to avoid causing a distraction or a 
break in the conversation. Matters of etiquette 
and what is called good form, at least that are 
maintained for a long time and not the caprice 
of fashion, are usually preservers of propriety and 
conservers of the general comfort of people in 
their association with each other. Whatever does 
not promote the general comfort of a family and 
conduce to orderly routine and agreeable man- 
ners should be ignored as undesirable. On the 
other hand, whatever prevents awkwardness or 
friction of any sort should be cultivated. Good 
table manners, as well as good manners every- 
where along life's road, tend to refine and smooth 
what is otherwise a pretty rough way. They 
make all serving easier. 

In training a new maid in table-waiting it is 
wise to have her initial steps taken at some of the 
simpler meals, breakfast or luncheon. Accustom 
her to the dining room by degrees, if you would 



WAITING ON TABLE 185 

have her do credit to her instructor and herself, 
enjoy being taught nice ways, and further be per- 
fectly at home there when you have guests. 
Strangeness always causes embarrassment. 
Everyone knows how quickly embarrassment 
or anxiety will confuse one and make a simple 
everyday affair go wrong. Awkward service 
has spoiled many a hostess' appetite and dissipated 
all her anticipated pleasure by turning the dinner 
hour into a period of torturing suspense. 

Whoever wants a meal nicely served, even by 
an expert waitress, should remember that she can- 
not wait upon more than six people at dinner 
without apparent haste. Haste always detracts 
from the propriety and dignity of the serving. 
A good waitress is swift, but appears in no hurry 
unless too much is expected of her. 



U CHAPTER FIFTEEN tJ 



CHILDREN'S PLACE AND RIGHTS IN 
THEIR OWN HOME 



Two obstreperous children. Children's right to be well born. 

Defrauded little ones. A happy child with a firm mother. A 

children's room. Children's money. 



n 



,OME people whom I once knew 
had two obstreperous children 
who were allowed to domi- 
neer over everyone in the house 
who dared not resist their 
tyranny. A naughty, disagree- 
able little girl of eight years could order 
her meals as she pleased, and change her order 
several times during the hour immediately pre- 
ceding the meal. At one moment she thought 
that she would have it upstairs in the nursery, 
with her brother, who was confined to the house 
with a cold. Then, after a squabble with that 
brother, she rang the bell, and directed the ser- 
vant answering it to tell the butler that she 
would dine downstairs with the family. As her 

186 




CHILDREN'S RIGHTS 187 

brother was her only playmate, she had to make 
up with him very soon ; again a new order would 
go to the pantry: " Miss Dimple would have her 
dinner sent up." And so on up to the dinner 
hour. In the absence of her foolish parents, 
someone, who was left in charge of the house, 
and, incidentally, of those little imps also, 
once undertook to thwart that small but incor- 
rigible girl, and directed that her last order 
be carried out just as she was giving a new 
one. She hung over the stairway listening to 
a colloquy between the butler and two others, 
and heard the man told that she could not give 
so many orders, whereupon the depraved child 
flung herself face downward upon the stairway 
and roared. The butler was so scared that ne 
declared she should have her dinner wherever she 
pleased to order it. He afterwards remarked he 
would " do whatever those children ordered, for 
he meant to keep his place." Does anyone need 
to be informed that their parents w T ere entirely 
to blame ? There was a big boy, also, in the same 
family, who now and then had a difference of 
opinion w T ith his father, and tried to settle it by 
force of arms, not fire-arms, but a regular fisti- 
cuff encounter. The first and only time that I 
heard or knew anything about these doings, I 



188 HOUSE AND HOME 

was puzzling over some strange sounds that I 
heard in the hall below my own room ; a scuffling 
and a very hard breathing led me to ask a maid, 
who had been longer in the house than I, what 
was going on below. This was her answer: 
" Oh, it is Master H. trying to lick his father; 
he often does that." The Heavenly Twins were 
crying with fright in the nursery that opened 
into that hall. I afterwards learned that the 
fracas began in the nursery. I also observed 
that the doting parent and his eldest-born did 
not speak for a couple of days. They made up 
only -to go through the same disgraceful combat 
again and again. To the maids it was a matter- 
of-course periodical performance. The wise 
father said to one who remonstrated with him re- 
garding the little girl's disorderly orders: " This 
is my children's home, and they shall do as they 
please in it." Fortunately for the world at large, 
and for homes generally, there are not many 
parents quite so" insanely indulgent to every whim 
and caprice of their children. Such a course is 
positively cruel to children who might be a source 
of interest and pleasure to friends and relatives 
and also to the domestics in their homes, but who 
become nuisances wherever they go because of 
their parents' short-sighted folly. The most lam- 



CHILDREN'S RIGHTS 189 



entable results come into the poor children's 
experiences, because they grow more and more 
unlovely, until their nearest relatives, .sometimes 
even their % parents, are glad to have them out of 
their sight. Those children's parents were as 
weak mentally as they were strong financially. 
Their children could have been easily managed by 
almost any firm and judicious person who really 
desired them to grow up useful and admirable 
characters. They were not specimens of the doc- 
trine of total depravity ; they possessed, and occa- 
sionally evinced, some fine traits, but they were 
so warped by their parents' over-indulgence they 
grew day by day more and more spoiled, more 
and more troublesome, and, young even as 
they were, positively brutal at times in their con- 
duct to everyone of whom they were not afraid. 
Those numbered in the last class were few. The 
worst of it all was that they never spoke the 
truth if they thought a falsehood would serve 
them better. They were the only children that 
I ever came in contact with that I could not 
even like. No resident governess stayed over a 
week in the house. Two came within three 
weeks, an interval of a week between the depar- 
ture of the first and the arrival of the second. 
Various were the experiments tried for educating 



iqo HOUSE AND HOME 

them. As this was many years ago, I cannot now 
say with what results, but since there is no 
royal road to mental culture many millions 
could be of no use to such children so far as their 
education was concerned. It requires very little 
imagination or seer's gift to foretell the general 
trend of their unhappy lives. 

Children, as a rule, have a keen, natural sense 
of justice, and very early discern between right 
and wrong. They are prompt to discover the 
difference between example and precept. It is 
very little use to tell them that they must always 
speak the truth, if they see and hear their elders 
doing exactly the opposite. They follow their 
seniors' examples, while precepts only voiced and 
not instilled in the conscience by corresponding 
examples, go in one ear and out of the other, 
but examples are powerful beyond all words. 
Then, too, children are incisive judges of consist- 
ency. The little nephew of a friend of mine was 
found crying, because, as he explained, his father 
had told him that he must never strike a boy 
smaller than himself because it was cowardly, 
" but," said the little fellow, " my father struck 
me, and he is a man, a great deal bigger than I 
am. I was a naughty boy, I struck my sister; 
but my father was a very naughty man when ht 



CHILDREN'S RIGHTS 191 

struck me." Ponder that, ye parents, who quote: 
" Spare the rod and spoil the child." And by 
the way, you will not find that proverb in the 
Bible, if you hunt from Genesis to Revelation. 
Parents who cannot train their children without 
resorting to brute force are exactly what the 
little boy said of his irate father, " very naughty." 
Blows are commonly the result of anger. Angry 
people are, for the time being, insane — not sane 
— off poise — unbalanced, and then entirely unfit 
to manage children because they cannot control 
themselves. The children that get whipped are 
those whose parents have neglected their duty to 
them, and let them become, as they express it, 
" unmanageable." Those children of whom I 
told in the opening of this chapter sometimes got 
severely whipped, and their screams could be 
heard over the house. Really, the ones that 
deserved punishment were their parents. And 
they have probably been getting it as the children 
grew older. The rod that descends upon parents 
because of their offspring's misdeeds is the hard- 
est, most stinging of all, for it cuts the very heart. 
Children have rights as well as place in their 
own homes. Their rights should be held sacred 
against all invasion. The first right of all chil- 
dren is to be well born, and that means thought- 



i92 HOUSE AND HOME 

fully planned for long before their arrival. They 
have a right to be cordially welcomed and joy- 
fully anticipated by both parents. When this 
is not the case it proves cruel wrong done by 
someone. Another right of which children are 
too often defrauded by their own parents is the 
right to good constitutions. No amount of 
money can ever compensate a child for coming 
into the world with a poor body. Life on this 
earth is of little worth without health and 
strength for the battle. Our strenuous President 
to the contrary, notwithstanding, I declare that 
quality is of more value to our country than 
quantity. And a large family without health 
and means for culture is a tax to the nation and 
no credit to the parents. It is absurd to brag of 
the number of your children, if you cannot also 
point to their usefulness to the world, because 
they are fitted to do good work in it. The place 
where we see the most children is down in the 
slums and in the most abjectly wretched portions 
of the city. I shall never forget my trip to the 
East Side of New York, where men, women, and 
children are huddled too closely together to ob- 
serve any of the decencies of life. There the 
pasty faces of the swarms of poor little children 
made me sick at heart. The recollection is like a 



CHILDREN'S RIGHTS 193 

nightmare now, as I think of it. The children 
over there have been defrauded of all their rights. 
They know not what it is to be children. To 
them childish joys and childish sorrows are alike 
unknown. The word home is as foreign in that 
quarter as are home pleasures. It had been better 
for them all if they had never been born; better 
for the municipality, and better for the credit of 
this nation. 

There is nothing in the world more beautiful, 
engaging, and delightful than a nice, bright 
child that is amenable to reason and prompt in 
obedience to lawful authority. I heard a little 
girl say to a playmate, who wanted her to beg 
her mother to let her do something that she had 
refused once: " No, I shall not ask again. When 
mamma says no, she means it, and I know there 
is no use in begging her." The child was per- 
fectly cheerful about the decision. She went 
on to say: "If mamma says, ' Well now, do 
you think you had better ? ' then I know that 
there is some chance for me to persuade her." I 
am certain that I never knew a happier child- 
life than that little girl led. And I am also 
certain that she never had a whipping in all her 
life, nor even a punishment. A child has confi- 
dence in one who is always kind and always firm. 



i94 HOUSE AND HOME 

When children begin to think and to compare 
— and they do this very early — then is the time 
to begin to teach them to do what is right, be- 
cause it is right , and to avoid what they know to 
be wrong, because it is wrong. This cultivates 
individuality and a sense of personal responsi- 
bility, far better for their characters than obey- 
ing anyone's rules and regulations simply because 
of their relative positions. Children taught to 
govern themselves need very few rules laid down 
for them. Theirs is not eye service, because they 
learn instinctively to listen for, and obey, the 
monitor that is within them. The parent who 
says to a child, " Do it because / tell you to," 
makes a grave mistake. That is an assumption 
of authority which must, in the very nature of 
things, be ephemeral, or, if not, so much the 
worse for both parent and child, for it makes a 
tyrant of one and a tool of the other, if parental 
domination continue after children reach mature 
years. Every child born into the world is an in- 
dividualized entity, physically related to its par- 
ents and other connections, but the soul using 
the fleshly organism can never be claimed by 
any human being. Ownership, or coercion of, a 
soul is impossible. The sooner parents realize 
this the better for fathers, and mothers, and 



CHILDREN'S RIGHTS 195 

children. Then the desire to rule will be super- 
seded by a much higher aim, the aim to develop 
all that is finest in their characters. Very young 
children must obey, but as they grow older it 
becomes less and less important if they have had 
good examples set them by their elders, and if 
they have been taught the first principles of living 
uprightly and, therefore, fearlessly and frankly. 

It is safe to say that quite as many children 
have been spoiled by over-training as by over-in- 
dulgence. If parents want to keep their children 
out of mischief they must provide suitable occu- 
pation for their time. The happiest and best- 
mannered children that I have known were those 
whose days were mapped out for them even 
in babyhood ; they always had something to do, 
from rising until bedtime, and life was never 
monotonous to them because they had constantly 
something to look forward to. Lessons, walks, 
and recreation filled up the hours between their 
meal times. There was an hour for each and all, 
and the times were strictly adhered to. Play did 
not interfere with lessons, and lessons never inter- 
rupted the play time. In fact, their lives were 
orderly. A little chap of seven would sometimes 
say: " I have fifteen minutes to spare; will you 
play with me, Miss C. ?" The little son of a 



196 HOUSE AND HOME 

friend of mine used to weary his mother asking 
her what he should do. One day he came with 
his usual question, and she said : " Why don't 
you go around and see grandpa and grandma?" 
11 Well, if I do," said the boy, " I'll just kiss 
them all around, and then there'll be nothing 
to do." 

Children love to feel that they are useful 
and can help along. They like to work, too, if 
not kept too long at one thing. In households 
where the domestic service is insufficient to ac- 
complish all the work that must be done, chil- 
dren can be made very useful without wearying 
them. Little tiny tots can be taught to use a 
dust-cloth and do very thorough work with it. 
The little boy that sometimes had " fifteen min- 
utes to spare " from his well-filled day thought it 
was great fun to go into the library, when the 
men were giving the books a thorough dusting, 
and with a cheese-cloth duster lend a hand. It 
is very true that " All work and no play will 
make Jack a dull boy." And it is equally true 
that all play, no work, and no system w r ill make 
a bright child dull. Worse yet, no routine and 
no method make the most troublesome and insub- 
ordinate children. But some parents may ob- 
ject: "We are too busy to spend so much time 



CHILDREN'S RIGHTS 197 

and thought on our children's occupations, or to 
lay out their time so methodically, filling every 
waking hour with something special for them to 
do. We have other and very important things 
to think of and do." There is but one answer 
to such objections. Children are not thrust upon 
their parents. Their upbringing is the most im- 
portant thing in their parents' and their own 
lives. It is one of their inalienable rights to be 
well brought up. And no child is well brought 
up that is not taught by its own experience very 
early in life the value of time and the value of 
money. Just so soon as a child can ask for a 
penny to spend, it should have an allowance and 
be taught to use a portion of it for giving. No 
matter how few, if the child ever has pennies 
given it by its parents it should know just how 
many pennies it can have a month. They should 
be given on a certain regular date and at no other 
time. Children should be taught to keep an ac- 
count of every penny spent and also taught to try 
to improve the way of spending by remembering 
what gave the most satisfaction in the past, but 
nobody should insist upon telling them how to 
spend their own money. This is another of their 
rights. A friend of mine gave a five-dollar gold 
piece to her little granddaughter when she was 



198 HOUSE AND HOME 

on a visit to the child's parents. The little girl's 
mother immediately conceived the idea of spend- 
ing the money for the child, that is, she wanted to 
dictate to her what she should buy with it. The 
little girl had made up her mind that she would 
give half of it to her brother, and spend the other 
half herself. She felt that it was her personal 
property, to do with as she pleased. So the 
mother said to the grandmother: " I do wish 
that you would use your influence with Gladys 
and induce her to spend that five dollars the 
way that I want her to." The grandmother did 
not feel like complying; she thought it indelicate, 
after making a present to the child, to meddle 
with her plans for disposing of it, but she was 
averse to refusing the mother's request, and there- 
fore, when next they met, she said : " Gladys, 
what are you going to do with that five dollars 
that I gave you? " The child told her just what 
she had told her mother. Then the grandmother 
reluctantly said : " Don't you think that you had 
better spend it the way your mother wants you 
to? " Putting her hand in her pocket, and pro- 
ducing the gold piece, the child handed it to her 
grandmother, saying: " Take it, grandma, I 
don't want it." The grandmother told me that 
she felt very mean arwi wished that she had let 



CHILDREN'S RIGHTS 199 

her granddaughter alone to do as she pleased 
with the present. 

Another friend told me of a little boy that she 
knew who had twenty-five cents given to him. 
Of course, he began to spend it mentally without 
delay. When he told his mother that he intended 
to buy a kite with his money, she said: " Oh, I 
wouldn't spend it for that! " So he gave the 
kite up. A little while after he told his father 
that he had made up his mind to buy a top. And 
forthwith his father remarked : " Oh, don't spend 
it for a top ! " And he did not. When out walk- 
ing with his auntie he saw something in a store 
window marked twenty-five cents. He wanted 
it, and he had the money for it. So he said to 
his aunt, " I think I'll go into that store and buy 
that ball." But his auntie exclaimed: " Oh, I 
wouldn't spend twenty-five cents for that ! " 
The youngster walked on; then he asked his 
aunt these questions: " Auntie, is this twenty-five 
cents my mother's money?" " No," said she. 
" Is it my father's? " " No." " Is it yours? " 
' Why, no, of course not." " Is it my twenty- 
five cents?" "Certainly, it is yours." "Well, 

then, d the twenty-five cents," said the boy; 

" I'm going to throw it over into that open lot." 
And he suited the action to his declaration, and 



2oo HOUSE AND HOME 

sent the silver coin spinning over into the lot 
that they were passing. Of course, no one ap- 
proves of his expletive, but he probably had heard 
it from his father; children do not invent those 
words. 

These two authentic anecdotes show the folly 
of interfering with children's rights. In each 
case the elders lost the respect of the children. 
And in each case likewise it gave the children a s 
sense of contempt for those who should above all 
have won their respect, by deserving it. Children 
whose rights are scrupulously regarded will nat- 
urally learn to respect the rights of others. 
There is nothing in families, between neighbors, 
and between nations, that causes so much dis- 
cord as meddling with the rights of others. 

Homes where there are children ought to be 
brighter and happier than those unblessed by 
their presence. When this is not the case it 
proves that there has been great negligence on 
the part of those directly responsible for the in- 
fluences and examples brought to bear upon the 
children at the most impressionable age. Rude 
and troublesome children are the cause of con- 
fusion, destruction, and unhappiness wherever 
they go. But the cause back of all their mis- 
conduct is traceable to those who have had the 



CHILDREN'S RIGHTS 201 

first opportunity for, and who have failed sig- 
nally in, doing their duty by them. 

Why do so many proprietors of apartment 
houses and flats bar out people with children? 
Is it the fault of the little ones that they do so 
much mischief and are so insubordinate and un- 
mannerly that no one wants them about their 
premises? In Japan the children never damage 
beautiful things that stand outside of the houses. 
In Germany they do not need rules to keep the 
parks decent. They are taught better than to 
deface and destroy everything that they touch. 
There is no reason at all why children should be 
nuisances to all except their own immediate rela- 
tives. All children are not so. The approach 
of some little ones is a delight to those who know 
them. For, unquestionably, as the most engag- 
ing, charming object in the world is a nice, bright 
child with good manners, so the most unfor- 
tunate object in the world is an unlovely child 
that people generally avoid. 

Children have a right to live the life of chil- 
dren. In their home they ought to have, if pos- 
sible, at least one room where they can have the 
utmost freedom consistent with health and safety. 
In that room there should be nothing that re- 
quires special care. There they should keep 



202 HOUSE AND HOME 

their playthings. And there they ought to be 
taught to leave everything when they are done 
playing. It is a great mistake not to make them 
learn habits of order — a place for everything, 
and everything in its place when not in use. 
They soon discover the advantage of knowing 
where to find their belongings instead of leaving 
their toys an)'where, just as they may happen 
to drop them. In the playroom children should 
have corners or particular spots especially their 
own, and there they can begin to learn the dif- 
ference between what is theirs and what is not. 
(Brothers and sisters do considerable gratuitous 
training of one another.) Of course, some are 
naturally more orderly than others, but the fact 
that every child as soon as it goes to school learns 
immediately to use its own desk, carry its own 
books, and occupy the place assigned to it, proves 
that it could do as much in its own home, 
if also taught there. The greatest obstacle to 
children's training seems to be the indolence of 
their parents, or their weak fondness for them 
that makes them so short-sighted regarding the 
real happiness of their little ones. 

There is one thing that should be unstinted in 
dealing with children, and that is praise for all 
the good that they do, and warm appreciation of 



CHILDREN'S RIGHTS 203 

their efforts to do right. And no one should 
ever say to any child, " You are bad." That is 
the way to cultivate just what you do not want 
to see in them. Let them know that you expect 
the best and are surprised w T hen they fail to ful- 
fill your expectations. Then they will be much 
more likely to try to live up to the ideal that 
they know you hold for them. 

Above all, let there be nothing artificial in 
the children's lives. Charles Wagner has put 
it so well that before closing this chapter I give 
his own words: " Falsehood is the vice of a slave, 
the refuge of the cowardly and the weak. He 
who is free is strong and unflinching in speech. 
We should encourage in our children the hardi- 
hood to speak frankly. What do we ordinarily 
do? We trample on natural disposition, level it 
down tc# the uniformity which, for the crowd, 
is synonymous with good form. To think with 
one's own mind, feel with one's own heart, ex- 
press one's own personality — how unconven- 
tional, how rustic! Oh, the atrocity of an edu- 
cation which consists in the perpetual muzzling 
of the only thing that gives any of us his reason 
for being! Of how many soul murders do we 
become guilty! Some are struck down with 
bludgeons, others gently smothered with pillows! 



2o 4 HOUSE AND HOME 

Everything conspires against independence of 
character. When we are little, people wish us 
to be dolls or graven images; when we grow up 
they approve of us on condition that we are like 
all the rest of the world: when you have seen 
one of them you have seen them all. Truth 
can free us from this bondage: let our children 
be taught to be themselves, to ring clear, without 
crack or muffle. Make loyalty a need in them, 
and in their gravest failures, if only they ac- 
knowledge them, count it for merit that they 
have not covered their sin. 

"To frankness let us add ingenuousness, in our 
solicitude as educators. We must not frighten it 
away: when it has once fled it so rarely comes 
back. Ingenuousness is not simply the sister of 
truth, the guardian of the individual qualities of 
each one of us; it is besides a great informing and 
educating force. I see among us too many practi- 
cal people, so called, who go about armed with 
terrifying spectacles and huge shears to ferret out 
naive things and clip their wings. They uproot 
ingenuousness from life, from thought, from edu- 
cation, and pursue it even to the region of 
dreams. Under pretext of making men of their 
children, they prevent their being children at all ; 
as if, before the ripe fruit of autumn, flowers did 



CHILDREN'S RIGHTS 205 



not have to be, and perfumes, and songs of birds, 
and all the fairy springtime. 

" I ask indulgence for everything naive and 
simple, not alone for the innocent conceits that 
flutter round the curly heads of children, but also 
for the legend, the folk song, the tales of the 
world of marvel and mystery. The sense of the 
marvelous is in the child, the first form of that 
sense of the infinite without which a man is like 
a bird deprived of wings. Let us not wean the 
child from it, but let us guard in him the faculty 
of rising above what is earthy, so that he may 
appreciate later on those pure and moving sym- 
bols of vanished ages wherein human truth has 
found forms of expression that our arid logic 
will never replace." 

It is, indeed, too true that some of the elders 
endeavor to muzzle a child's thoughts, and muffle 
all its ingenuousness. Instead of teaching the 
child to think and govern its own thoughts they 
try to suppress thought in the child and tell it 
what to think and what not to think. Without 
accomplishing what they try to do, they never- 
theless do incalculable mischief that takes a life- 
time for the child to outgrow. Some children are 
too independent to allow anyone to assume do- 
minion over their thought. They are like the 



2o6 HOUSE AND HOME 

little girl who was told by her mother, her aunt, 
and her grandmother, successively, that she must 
not express an uncomplimentary opinion that she 
had formed about one of her mother's callers. 
" Well," at last said the child, " I think so." 
" But you must not think so," commanded her 
elders. " You can boss my talk, but you cannot 
boss my think," replied the little girl. And she 
was right. 



u 



CHAPTER SIXTEEN* 



U 



HOME NURSING 



Persons acceptable to the sick. Neglected colds. Value of good 

home nursing. Temperature. Pulse. Respiration. The 

clinical thermometer. Taking the pulse. Respiration. 



V 




s OME persons seem to have a genius 
for nursing and are never so happy 
as when ministering to the sick. 
They know intuitively, much — 
that others learn only by careful 
training — about ways of making an 
invalid as comfortable as possible. But how- 
ever natural one's aptitude in caring for the sick, 
there are always improved methods and new in- 
ventions, for ameliorating a patient's suffering, 
to be learned of, especially from those who make 
nursing a profession. It sometimes happens that 
one who most dearly loves the sick person is less 

* These chapters are largely composed of extracts from Miss 
Eveleen Harrison's valuable little book on " Home Nursing." 
All readers interested in the subject are referred to that book for 
fuller information upon the subject. 

207 



2o8 HOUSE AND HOME 

acceptable as nurse than a stranger who under- 
stands better what is wanted to make the sufferer 
comfortable. We cannot all of us be trained 
nurses, but all who desire to do so can easily be- 
come acquainted with much that is practical, and 
with part of the curriculum of the course of one 
who is training for the profession. 

Before taking up the subject it may be well to 
say a few prefatory words upon the wisdom of 
using preventive measures to ward off a 
threatened illness. In the majority of cases this 
could be done by taking that ounce of prevention 
which so many neglect until it is too late. The 
already quoted proverb: " Joy and temperance 
and repose slam the door on the doctor's nose," is 
again pertinent. Joy, temperance, repose, all three, 
are health-giving and health-conserving, but here 
it is purposed to lay stress upon the incalculable 
importance first, of temperance; next, of proper 
and timely rest. By giving up and going quietly 
to bed for a day or two, or even for only a few 
hours sometimes, one may avoid what, without 
that little precaution, might prove a serious and 
long attack, with its retinue of aches and pains, 
drugs, and doctors unwelcome bills — cure or no 
cure. They are as certain to be called for as 
taxes. 



HOME NURSING 209 

It is especially true with regard to colds in 
their early stages simply by rest, warmth, and a 
good, long sleep, they can be sent speedily to the 
realm of nothingness, for there is no storage 
place outside the human organism for the preser- 
vation of aches or any fleshly ills, past, present, or 
future. 

Neglected colds lead to all sorts of suffering 
and to almost every known ailment, if in no other 
way by depleting the system and getting it in a 
receptive condition to fall an easy prey to dis-ease. 
Therefore it is well to realize the vital impor- 
tance of getting quickly rid of a cold while it is 
in the incipient stage and easy to conquer, instead 
of permitting it to progress and develop into some 
serious indisposition. A good, long sleep in a 
warm, but thoroughly ventilated, room has often 
proved both a tonic and a cure. To break up a 
cold it is all-important that the ailing one should 
rest quietly for hours, letting the vital forces 
take absolute possession of the citadel of being 
and control the situation. 

Good home nursing given in season is of great 
value in every family, because it immediately 
checks and promptly conquers a threatened ill- 
ness. But inexperienced or untrained people 
seldom nurse wisely. In the case of colds, and 



2io HOUSE AND HOME 

in many other cases also, good nursing is shown 
by such a wise adjustment of conditions and en- 
vironment that Nature is given every oppor- 
tunity to restore the lost balance without delay, 
or drugs. 

It is impossible to overestimate the power of 
our natural forces, when they are encouraged 
and given full sway, or their imperative claim 
to entire dominion w T hile they are contending 
with abnormal conditions that we have brought 
upon ourselves by lack of poise. Henry Wood 
says: " Pain is friendly." Assuredly it is so, 
because it admonishes and calls a halt from some 
sort of intemperance. 

Reckless people need to be reminded that the 
sin of intemperance is not confined to drunkards 
or liquor-drinking. There is more intemperance 
in eating than in drinking. Still more in pleasure- 
seeking of all sorts. Intemperance in business 
pursuits is one of the crying sins of this day. 
There is intemperance in work of all sorts — in- 
temperance in study and intellectual culture, in- 
temperance in religion and in charitable work. 
True, the last two are not as ominous or as wide- 
spread as any of the others. But the point is 
that any intemperance is sure sooner or later to 
cause pain, disease, weakness, and these announce 



HOME NURSING 211 

emphatically to the sufferer that dfs-order is 
reigning within because it has been allowed to 
usurp the place of order. Pain is caused by the 
contention for supremacy between natural, there- 
fore divine, order and that which is abnormal, 
consequently unfit to continue. The battle be- 
tween the normal and the abnormal always 
causes pain. It is said by those who make a 
study of disease that often dangerous conditions 
exist before pain announces the battle on. 

If these are facts, then we may realize the 
great importance of siding with the lawful health- 
restoring — therefore natural — forces, instead of 
thwarting their beneficent efforts for restoration 
by our continued intemperance. Frequently ab- 
solute rest is the first condition that must be 
yielded to by the one who is out of order. That 
little phrase is most expressive. 

There are very few people, no matter what 
their station in life, who do not find themselves 
at some time so situated that they would be very 
glad to know some of the first principles of good 
nursing. Moreover there are a greaUmany who 
find the cost of a trained nurse a heavy tax upon 
a limited purse. And all would like to be able 
to judge of the competency of one coming in 
as a total stranger to take charge of their dear 



2i2 HOUSE AND HOME 

ones. For these and many other reasons a book 
with the title " House and Home " should 
throw some light on the subject of home nursing 
and point the w r ay for those who would gladly 
avail themselves of every valuable hint leading 
to further knowledge. 

In cases of severe or protracted illness the 
services of a capable nurse count for more than 
the doctor's visits. Good nursing without any 
doctor is more desirable than a doctor in regular 
attendance with a poor nurse or none at all. 

The patient depends upon the nurse for clean- 
liness, pure air, proper nourishment, and almost 
every comfort. These all go a long way towards 
promoting the sufferer's ease and restoring 
health. 

In what are considered chronic cases the nurse 
is really the all-important factor in an invalid's 
room. No matter how, when, or where the 
nurse gains experience and becomes skilled in 
caring for the sick, every family should have one 
or more who do know what ought to be done 
and what ought to be avoided in the room 
of an invalid. The requisite knowledge is now 
broadcast throughout the length and breadth of 
the land so that he who runs may read. Hardly 
any family is there without at least one, if not 



HOME NURSING 213 

more than one, trained nurse amongst its relatives 
or connections. The writer had two nieces who 
trained to be professional nurses. Both after- 
wards married and went to their new duties well 
equipped for the responsibilities and cares of a 
family. Before the younger one married she 
was so much in demand amongst her own rela- 
tives that a young married woman of the family 
proposed that the relatives should " charter 
her " and retain her services for themselves, be- 
cause it was always such a disappointment if, 
when they wanted her, she happened to be en- 
gaged on an outside case. 

A paid trained nurse in constant attendance 
upon one family is strictly the rich man's luxury. 
Even a nurse chartered by several relatives might 
be needed in more than one family at once. 
After all, there is nothing so valuable as personal 
knowledge. It generates courage and independ- 
ence that money can never buy. Everyone ought 
to make it a business to learn as much as possible 
about a trained nurse's duties and be able, if 
necessary, to do without a professional nurse in 
all ordinary cases. The following hints and 
directions will be found useful to all those who 
desire to inform themselves about the chief points 
that necessarily should be observed by one who 



2i 4 HOUSE AND HOME 

is caring for an invalid, or who has the charge 
of a case of temporary indisposition: 

TEMPERATURE AND THE USE OF THE CLINICAL 
THERMOMETER 

" The normal temperature of the body is 98.4 
F. The normal pulse is 72 beats to the minute. 
The respiration is 18 breaths to the minute." 

Temperature, respiration, and pulse, these 
three, give trustworthy testimony regarding the 
condition of the human organism at all times. 

When any part of the system is out of order 
the temperature immediately registers the fact. 
A degree above or below the normal mark, unless 
induced by some immediate mental cause, 
such as fright or temporary excitement, is an 
alarm signal that cannot be ignored with im- 
punity. It is a proof that the fight has be- 
gun between the true and the false, between 
right and wrong, between what is natural and 
what is unnatural. Everything depends upon 
which side the sufferer really works with. 

" A rise in the temperature, or an increase of 
pulse and respiration in a child, is not as impor- 
tant as in an adult. Children, as a rule, have a 
higher normal mark than adults. Women are 
apt to have a slightly higher temperature than 



HOME NURSING 215 

men." Individual temperament influences, and 
there is apt to be a slight variation above or below 
the average according to whether one is an easy- 
going, placid person or of a nervous, excitable 
disposition. For this reason it is important for 
the nurse to know each individual's normal tem- 
perature and pulse. Without this knowledge 
one might mistake a normal for an abnormal 
condition. 

" Before using a clinical thermometer shake it 
carefully (holding the bulb end downwards) 
until the mercury falls below the mark 97 ; then 
insert the bulb end in your patient's mouth, well 
under the tongue, make him close the lips firmly, 
so that no air will enter, and leave it there for a 
full three minutes. Unless the lips are kept 
tightly closed all the time you will not get the 
true temperature of the body. At the end of 
three minutes remove the thermometer and note 
carefully the exact number where the mercury 
stands on the thermometer. 

" Before using the thermometer invariably 
wash it in cold water. After you have finished 
also invariably dip it in alcohol or some disin- 
fectant solution, to keep it clean and to guard 
against infection. 

" In fever cases the thermometer should be 



2i6 HOUSE AND HOME 

kept standing in alcohol — a piece of soft cotton 
in the bottom of the glass to prevent breaking it. 
Always, before inserting it in the mouth, it 
should be rinsed off in cold water. 

" The temperature of our bodies varies at dif- 
ferent hours of the day. It is always higher in 
the afternoon than in the morning. Its highest 
point is usually between 4 and 6 p. M. Its lowest 
point is between 2 and 4 A. M. 

" Take your patient's temperature as nearly as 
possible at the same hour of the morning and 
evening. Only by observing this rule will you be 
able to keep an accurate record of the changes 
of temperature. 

" A half an hour at least should elapse after 
meals before the temperature is taken, because 
stimulating meats and drinks tend to elevate the 
temperature for a while. 

" For twenty minutes before using the ther- 
mometer by mouth the patient should not have 
a hot or cold drink, or any ice; any of these 
would prevent your getting the exact temper- 
ature. 

" Temperature by the rectum always registers 
about half a degree higher than when taken by 
the mouth. 

" With children who will not keep their 



HOME NURSING 217 

mouths firmly closed for three minutes, with de- 
lirious or unconscious adults, and in typhoid- 
fever cases the rectal temperature is more 
accurate. 

" In taking rectal temperature, after shaking 
the mercury far below 97°, cover the bulb with 
olive oil or vaselin, and with the patient lying 
on the left side, insert the thermometer about an 
inch and a half into the rectum. Hold it there 
three minutes. 

" In the case of a child amuse it or distract its 
attention to prevent its crying, as that would 
elevate the temperature." 

The clinical thermometer is a very useful little 
implement, but overanxious people are prone to 
use it too much. It is possible to cause or to 
prolong illness by too much devotion to that 
small instrument. Avoid subservience to any- 
thing, however useful it may be when serving its 
legitimate purpose. 

TAKING THE PULSE. SEVENTY-TWO BEATS TO 
THE MINUTE NORMAL 

" The pulse is counted by placing the first and 
second ringer of one hand lightly on the inside 
ot your patient's wrist. After pressing gently, 
but firmly, you will feel in a few seconds the 



2i8 HOUSE AND HOME 

steady beat of the pulse. Time the beat by the 
watch. Count by the half minute and double 
the result, or count for a full minute. It is al- 
ways best to take the pulse twice in succession 
to be sure of making no mistake. Sometimes, 
when the patient is asleep, the pulse may be 
counted in the temple better than in the wrist." 

" In nervous and excitable people the pulse 
sometimes varies according to their feelings." A 
capable nurse understands temperaments as well 
as temperatures. " When the temperature and 
the pulse rise at the same time and do not subside 
in a couple of hours, it is almost certain that 
there is trouble somewhere that may not safely 
be ignored." 

RESPIRATION. EIGHTEEN BREATHS TO THE 

MINUTE NORMAL 

" Count the respiration without the knowledge 
of the patient. If conscious that you are watch- 
ing it will be impossible for him to breathe 
naturally. 

" If not distinct during sleep, you can easily 
feel the rise and fall of the chest by placing your 
hand upon it. Respiration below twelve or 
above thirty to the minute is a danger signal that 
should be watched." 



HOME NURSING 219 

"The temperature, pulse, and respiration taken 
with the patient in a recumbent restful position 
will be more accurate than if standing or sitting. 

" During sleep the pulse is a little slower than 
when one is awake. This should be borne in 
mind when taking the pulse." 



u 



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 



U 



HOME NURSING (continued). 



The bed. Pillows. Sheets. Rubber sheet. Light-weight bed- 
spread. Clothing freshly aired. Sunlight the healer and puri- 
fier. Temperature. Ventilation. Perfect cleanliness. 




u 



C\HE first thing to be considered 
is the bed. A firm hair mat- 
tress should always be used, 
with a thin blanket or covering 
of some kind under the lower 
sheet. After long service all 
mattresses are inclined to sink in the middle and 
become very uncomfortable to lie upon for any 
length of time. A blanket folded lengthwise 
and place under the mattress, in the middle of 
the bed, or two flat pillows, will overcome this 
difficulty. When there is much fever a hair 
pillow will be found, though harder, much 
cooler than a feather one. A number of 
small pillows of all shapes and sizes, espe- 
cially during long cases of illness, will prove of 
the greatest comfort. You can tuck them in odd 



HOME NURSING 221 

corners, under the back and shoulders as a help 
to keep up the knees and thus take all the strain 
from the back. They form comfortable resting 
places for injured limbs, and support the weight 
of the clothes from sensitive parts of the body. 
Small pillows made of cotton or wool, covered 
with cheese-cloth or old linen, answer the purpose 
quite as well as more expensive ones of feathers 
or down. 

" It is much wiser to use cotton sheets in sick- 
ness instead of linen, unless in summer time, as 
linen is chilly and uncomfortable to a delicate 
person. 

' Three sheets are required in making the bed, 
also a piece of rubber sheeting, about three- 
quarters of a yard wide, to be used under the 
draw sheet. Where there is no danger of the 
patient soiling the mattress, the rubber sheeting 
may be dispensed with, as it causes unnecessary 
perspiration, and if it wrinkles under the patient 
may even lead to bed-sores. 

1 To arrange a bed for a sick person so that it 
will be thoroughly comfortable and free from 
wrinkles, the under sheet must be drawn very 
smoothly and well tucked in. If your patient is 
heavy or inclined to restlessness, you will find it 
of great advantage to pin the under sheet at the 



222 HOUSE AND HOME 

four corners with safety pins. Over the under 
sheet and across the middle of the bed, lay the 
rubber sheet, pin it at the corners and cover with 
the draw sheet, which is a small sheet folded to 
the width of the rubber and tucked firmly over 
it on both sides of the bed. The advantage of 
the draw sheet is that it may be changed as often 
as may be required without disturbing the pa- 
tient, and it serves to keep the under sheet clean 
for a much longer period. 

" In putting on the upper sheet leave a good 
margin turned over at the top to cover the 
blanket. Instead of a heavy white spread, place 
over the blanket another sheet or a dimity coun- 
terpane. Three points to be observed about a 
sick bed are perfect cleanliness, no crumbs, and 
no wrinkles. 

" Where the supply of linen is limited a clean 
pillow case can be made to do duty for a double 
period. Change it at night and hang it out to 
air until the morning, when it will be fresh for 
the day. The upper sheet which is often only 
crushed — not really soiled, can be straightened, 
folded and used for a draw sheet." 

I would here add that an invalid may be made 
to feel freshly clothed for the night and the morn- 
ing by keeping two nightgowns in use, one always 



HOME NURSING 223 

airing while the other is in wear. Give the one 
that is airing a good sun bath whenever you can. 
All changes that bring fresh air and the sun's 
healing powers to a patient are worth more than 
doctors and medicine and cost far less. 

Again quoting from Eveleen Harrison's prac- 
tical little book: " Crumbs should be brushed off 
after every meal with a little whisk broom, and 
the draw sheet pulled tightly and smoothly two 
or three times a day, to avoid wrinkles." 

LIGHT 

" Sunlight is one of the necessities for a sick 
room. Even should the windows have to be 
darkened at the commencement of an illness, as 
soon as your patient is convalescent plenty of sun- 
shine will be of inestimable value, both mentally 
and physically. It is a great purifier and healer, 
and should not be excluded except for especial 
reasons. If the light is too strong for the eyes, 
you may tone it by placing a screen between the 
windows and the bed. If you keep the room 
dark, or with a ' dim religious light,' your pa- 
tient's eyes will be weak and delicate for a long 
time. 

" Never allow a bed to face a window, as the 
light falling directly on the eyes is very distress- 



224 HOUSE AND HOME 

ing. At night darken the lamp or gas, by means 
of a small shade; a newspaper fastened — with a 
bent hairpin — on one side of the globe nearest the 
patient answers the purpose. A pretty flower 
shade can easily and quickly be made with bright 
colored tissue paper cut in the shape of large rose 
leaves and fastened with mucilage on a piece of 
stiff net. The leaves must be very full and 
graduate towards the center. This shade may 
be fastened by wire on the globe." 

HEAT 

" In very cold weather the sick room should be 
kept at an even temperature. Where there is no 
open fireplace a small gas stove should be on 
hand in case of emergency. 

"A thermometer must hang near the middle of 
the room, at some distance from the window or 
fireplace, so as to record the exact temperature, 
which should be carefully regulated. In ordinary 
cases a temperature of 70 F. is the best, but 
where there is much fever, as in typhoid or scar- 
let fever, etc., the room should not be warmer 
than 65 ° F. 

" In the early morning hours, between three 
and five o'clock, the atmosphere is colder than 
during any other part of the day, and as the vi- 



HOME NURSING 225 

tality of the body is always lower at that time, 
care should be taken to have extra blankets on 
hand for the invalid, and if necessary give 
a hot drink and apply a hot-water bag to 
the feet. This is especially to be noted with 
elderly people and in very serious cases of ill— 
ness. 

A thoughtful nurse forestalls the possibility of 
her patient feeling the change of temperature 
that takes place in the early morning hours. 

VENTILATION 

An open fireplace is a great aid to ventilation. 
Because of this and the cheerful aspect that it 
gives, it is always a desirable feature of a sick 
room.. It can be fed noiselessly by having the 
coal for replenishing put in paper bags before it 
is brought to the room or else wrapped in news- 
paper. In either case it is placed upon the fire 
paper and coal at once. A poker of wood causes 
no noise and is quite as useful as one of iron or 
brass. 

" Ventilation in the summer is helped, when 
there is no fire, by placing a lighted candle in the 
fireplace — causing a draught up the chimney — it 
has the same effect as a fire. 

" The bed should stand a little out from the 



226 HOUSE AND HOME 

wall on all sides for the air to circulate around 
it. When the weather is very warm the bed 
should stand in the middle of the room. A 
screen protects the head from draughts. 

" More fresh air is needed during sickness than 
in health. When the body is weak the lungs re- 
quire more oxygen than when one is well and 
moving about. 

" Thorough ventilation may be had in severe 
weather without exposing the patient to draughts. 
Two'windows facing each other, left open two or 
three inches at the top, will give a continuous cur- 
rent of air high enough above the bed to prevent 
a draught immediately upon the patient. When 
there is but one window in the room it should 
be open at the top and, if it is not near the bed, 
at the bottom also once in a while, but never let 
air blow on the bed's level. Hot air rises, cold air 
descends; cold air forces the impure air up and 
out at the window's top. Ventilation may be 
caused by raising the window three or four inches 
from the bottom and placing a piece of strong 
cardboard or a strip of wood six or eight inches 
wide over, but an inch away from, the opening. 
This permits the air to enter gradually in an up- 
ward direction. The bed should invariably be 
protected by a screen. When ventilating is done 



HOME NURSING 227 

through an adjoining room, a screen should be 
put between the bed and the door. 

" This last method of ventilating is done by 
first filling the room with fresh air and allowing 
it to warm gradually before opening the door 
into the sick room. In cases of bronchitis or 
pneumonia, w T here a breath of air is likely to in- 
crease the cough, it is wiser to air the patient's 
room by keeping a window open top and bottom 
in an adjoining room, and allowing it to enter 
through a partly open door. 

" Every morning and evening the window 
should be opened wide for a few minutes — the 
number of minutes depending upon the weather. 
Two minutes in some weather will accomplish as 
much of a change in the air as twenty will in 
milder weather. Common sense, and not any 
particular time limit, should govern the duration 
of the ventilating period. You should always 
cover the patient carefully with extra blankets 
and place a shawl over the head and mouth just 
before and during the morning and evening air- 
ing. Afterwards remove the extra coverings 
gradually. Never, through your carelessness, let 
your charge get a chill. 

' To dissipate an unpleasant odor take a towel 
or a newspaper in each hand, and wave them to 



228 HOUSE AND HOME 

and fro with the window open. This method is 
efficacious in summer, as it creates a rapid circu- 
lation which freshens and cools the room. 

" In fever cases it is absolutely important to 
have a current of fresh air passing through the 
room all the time; when the temperature is high 
it is almost impossible for the patient to catch 
cold. Plenty of fresh air hastens recovery by 
lowering the temperature. 

" The invalid, or anyone who is constantly in 
the room, cannot judge the temperature or the 
purity of the air. By entering the room from 
the open air, or from some other part of the 
house, the difference in the atmosphere is imme- 
diately noticeable." 

Even healthy people lose appetite in a close hot 
room. By opening the window for a breath of 
fresh air before meals the patient's appetite can 
be stimulated. 

Perfect cleanliness should be the inflexible rule 
in caring for the patient, the bed, and the room. 

" After the daily bath the hair should be 
brushed, the teeth and finger-nails cleaned, the 
bed changed, and all soiled clothing removed. 
The room should be cleaned as noiselessly as 
possible and no dust raised. It can be done by 
using a damp bag tied on the broom or a cloth 



HOME NURSING 229 



wrung out of water pinned over It. A slightly 
damp cloth should be used for the dusting." 

All furniture that holds dust should be dis- 
carded. Never use a feather duster in a sick 
room. They do not remove, but disseminate, 
dust. 

" Allow no soiled clothing to remain in the 
room any longer than necessary. Remove all 
evacuations also as quickly as possible." It is 
well to have somewhere outside a disinfectant — 
a can of chloride of lime is good. Sprinkle a 
little in the vessels if they have to stand anywhere 
before emptying. Use plenty of soap and hot 
water and ammonia for washing bed-pans and 
urinals. In fever cases they should be also 
rinsed off with a disinfectant solution. Never 
permit these vessels to stand in sight when not in 
use. 

11 Flowers should not be left over night in the 
sick room. The air of the room is purer at night 
without them and they keep fresh longer if put 
in a cool place. Flowers can be kept fresh for 
some time by taking them out of the vases at night 
and cutting off a little piece of the stem in a 
slanting direction, then lay them in a pasteboard 
box and sprinkle them " — or else pin them up in 
newspaper and put them outside the window. 



230 HOUSE AND HOME 

They should be covered or pinned to exclude the 
air. 

A screen may be had with little delay and no 
expense by using a clothes-horse and covering it 
with muslin, cheese-cloth, or simply a sheet 
pinned securely with safety pins. 

" Where there is no bedroom refrigerator the 
ice should be wrapped in flannel and placed on a 
bowl or cup turned upside down inside a large 
hand-basin; the broth, milk, or jelly can rest in 
the basin against the ice. The whole should be 
covered with a towel — a bath-towel is the best — 
and the basin should stand near a window." 

If no miniature ice pick can be had, a strong 
pin breaks it with little trouble. 

Where there is no little ice-grinder in the 
pantry and an ice-bag or ice-cap is required, put 
the ice in a strong towel or bag and pound it with 
a hammer, but never do this within the hearing 
of the sick one. 

" Water or milk that must be kept in the room 
should be covered all the time, when not being 
given to the patient. Broth or milk needed in 
the night where no ice can be had, may be kept 
cool by wrapping the vessel in a damp towel and 
standing it outside the window." 

Pillows should be turned often. Never allow 



HOME NURSING 231 

them to get hot and packed. They should be 
shaken in the open air at least twice a day. 
Avoid jarring patients in doing anything to pro- 
mote their comfort. Do everything possible 
away from the bed. 

" To raise a sick person while changing the 
pillows or to draw him up in the bed, let him 
clasp his arms firmly around your neck, then 
place one hand well under his back, and lift 
gently and slowly, while with the other hand 
you slip out one pillow and put in another." 

If possible have two sets of pillows, one set 
airing and sunning while the others are in use. 
Keep patients fresh and clean, if you would 
hasten convalescence and minimize their suffering. 

" When a patient is too weak to help himself, 
get assistance. With one person on each side of 
the bed each clasping the other's wrists firmly 
under the patient's shoulders and back you can 
raise or draw him up in bed without any strain 
or fatigue." 

This should be learned by practice with a well 
person, before you undertake it with an invalid. 
Then there will be no nervousness on the part of 
the tyro nurse. And here let it be said that ner- 
vous, anxious people should exclude themselves 
from a sick room. They do no good and often 



232 HOUSE AND HOME 

do serious harm. If very desirous to be of some 
service, they will find plenty to do outside of the 
sick room to help the nurse without ever crossing 
the threshold. 

Never permit your patient to be annoyed by 
flies or any insects. A mosquito bar can be 
quickly made by having a hook in the ceiling with 
a large ring hanging from it, through which a 
piece of mosquito netting can be drawn and then 
arranged around the bed. Be sure that it lies 
upon the floor, if you would have it effective. 

" Change of position can be accomplished, when 
the bed is a double one, by keeping one side for 
the day and the other for the night. If the pa- 
tient is too weak to roll over alone, you can draw 
him over on a sheet. With two small beds side 
by side the change can be made by putting a large 
sheet over the two beds and allowing the patient 
to roll over, or you can draw him over on, and 
with, the sheet." 

Changing sheets, with the patient on the bed, 
requires practice and should be learned with a 
well person on the bed until you are expert. 
Make no experiments with the sick one. 

Have the clean sheets always well aired and 
in cold weather warmed. Shut the door and 
windows while the change is being made. 



HOME NURSING 233 

" First change the under sheet. Turn the pa- 
tient over from you on one side, fold the soiled 
sheet tightly, in flat folds, close to the patient. 
Lay on the clean sheet smoothly with half of it 
folded up against the roll of the soiled sheet, then 
both can be slipped under the body at once. 
Tuck in the clean sheet on that side of the bed, 
then cross to the other side, turn the patient 
back on the opposite side, gently pull out the 
soiled sheet from underneath. Afterwards draw 
the folds of the clean one, pull straight, and tuck 
firmly and neatly. By following this method 
the draw sheet, rubber sheeting, and under sheet 
may all be changed at one time. 

" To change the upper sheet loosen all the bed- 
clothes at the foot, then spread the clean sheet 
and blanket on top of the other bedclothes. 
With one hand hold the clean sheet and blanket 
up to the neck of your patient, with the other 
slip down the soiled clothes underneath right 
over the foot of the bed ; tuck in the fresh bed- 
clothes and spread the counterpane." An expert 
will do this without uncovering or fatiguing the 
invalid. 

No one should ever sit on the side of the bed 
or lean against it. No one should walk heavily 
across the floor of a sick room or the floor above. 



234 HOUSE AND HOME 

' To protect any injured part of the body from 
the weight of bedclothes without the use of the 
iron cradles used in hospitals, two or three bar- 
rel hoops will answer the purpose, or a round 
band-box large enough to slip the injured limb 
through. Pillows laid at each side of the bed 
will keep bedclothes a couple of inches above the 
sensitive part. 

" If unprovided with a bed-rest, one may be 
contrived from a chair with the legs turned up- 
ward on the bed. The long sloping back then 
forms a support for pillows piled in, one behind 
another, to the top. Put a small pillow under 
the knees to prevent the body from slipping down 
in the bed. 

" Guard carefully against bed-sores. Some 
people have very sensitive skins. Even during a 
short illness continual pressure may cause trouble. 
The back, elbows, knees, and heels, but espe- 
cially the back, should be watched closely. The 
first symptoms of a bed-sore are redness of the 
skin with a pricking, burning sensation. Bed- 
sores will be found when the vitality is weakened 
by fever, indeed it takes very little in the way of 
pressure, moisture, or continued dampness, and 
even wrinkles in the sheets, or crumbs, to produce 
these dreadful sores. It is far easier to prevent 



HOME NURSING 235 

than it is to cure bed-sores. In paralytic cases, 
and with elderly people, they are most difficult 
to heal. 

" To prevent, as far as possible, any appearance 
of them, bathe the parts daily with warm water 
and pure soap, then rub briskly with alcohol to 
harden the skin, and dust on talcum or bismuth 
powder to remove all mofeture. Guard carefully 
against crumbs, or wrinkles in the under sheet. 
Persuade the patient to turn in different positions 
every two or three hours, to avoid long-continued 
pressure on one spot. 

" With unconscious patients greater watchful- 
ness is required. When there are involuntary 
evacuations, the clothing must be changed imme- 
diately and the body thoroughly washed and 
powdered. 

" The first symptoms of bed-sores should be 
watched closely and all pressure removed from 
the part by a judicious use of air cushions and 
soft pads. Soft pads, made from cheese-cloth 
filled with cotton, can be boiled every week as 
well as hair pillows. Rubber rings can also be 
easily washed. 

11 Should the skin become broken, stop using 
alcohol and apply a little oxide-of-zinc ointment 
or balsam of Peru on a piece of gauze. Protect 



236 HOUSE AND HOME 

the place with a pad. If it does not heal imme- 
diately, seek special treatment from your family 
doctor. 

" No one should enter the sick room straight 
from the open air on a cold or a wet day; all 
should wait elsewhere until their clothes lose 
dampness and become warm. 

" No matter how acceptable the visitor may be 
it is necessary to guard against tiring the patient. 
And under no circumstances permit two people to 
sit each side of the bed and converse across the 
invalid. Visitors should occupy chairs so placed 
that the sick one can look at them without any ef- 
fort. They should leave before tiring the patient." 

It is unwise to allow the patient to sit up long 
during the early stages of convalescence. " Half 
an hour the first day will be sufficient. After the 
first day it is better to let the convalescent sit up 
twice for a short time, than to be tired by being 
up too long." 

In these matters the nurse should be watchful 
to learn just how long a time seems to do the 
patient good, and insist upon the invalid return- 
ing to bed before showing any signs of weariness. 
" Sitting up in an easy-chair is a more complete 
change than reclining upon a sofa. It helps to 
restore the strength more rapidly." 



HOME NURSING 237 



Unless there be some special reason to oppose 
it, encourage your patient to walk a little more 
and more every day after convalescence. The 
legs lose strength during the inactivity of illness 
and power can only be restored by exercising them 
judiciously. But the exercise should be taken 
gradually. Nothing is gained by overtaxing the 
strength, but something is always lost. 

Give your charge as much fresh air as possible 
before the first outing. If the weather is cold, 
wrap a convalescent in blankets with a soft shawl 
over the head. Then open a window wide and 
let him enjoy the fresh air and, if possible, a pleas- 
ant view. Before closing the window or remov- 
ing the wraps, let your patient take a walk around 
the room and find out what the legs are capable 
of doing without fatigue. Never remove the 
wraps until the window has been closed long 
enough to restore the usual atmosphere to the 

room. 

Judgment and tact are imperatively necessary 
in dealing with a convalescent who, when weary 
of the sick room and the bed, is in danger of 
undertaking much that would retard recovery. 

No matter how experienced you may be, never 
allow your charges to suppose for a moment that 
you intend to dominate them — even for their wel- 



238 HOUSE AND HOME 

fare. Rather give them the contrary impression, 
if you would influence them for their good and 
cultivate their docility. Put yourself in his place, 
should be the motto of all nurses, especially when 
the patient's will seems opposed to theirs. 



XJ 



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 



U 



THE UNPAID WORKING HOUSE- 
KEEPER 



Law student's question. Value of wife's services. When romance 
starves. The poor rich wife. Arrangements of some, 
more ingenious than dignified. 



tr 



c j~T l N every partnership relation, that 
^W of husband and wife excepted, a 

fljKfflB distinct understanding and mutual 

[IjEc-.^* agreemcnt no ^ s ^ ot ^ P art i es t0 a 
\ wmB&~ contract. Albeit no solemn vows 

are taken, the obligations are binding upon each 
member of the concern. But, in the steps pre- 
liminary to matrimony, many leave every- 
thing to chance or luck, so-called, with 
results often most unlucky, to one especially 
of the contracting parties. In consequence, 
all over the land there are countless women 
who belong to the class designated in our 
title, a silent body of incessant workers without 
hope of the slightest pecuniary independence. 
Edwin Markham's " Man with the Hoe " seems 



239 



2 4 o HOUSE AND HOME 

a free and enviable being, compared with these 
sempiternal drudges. The only variety in their 
lives is when they, perforce, exchange household 
work for the labor of childbirth upon the ad- 
vent of each new baby. Those are their resting 
periods, and they are brief. 

A law-student asked: " What would you pro- 
pose, how would you regulate compensation to a 
wife?" Take an illustrative case: A woman 
marries, bears children, nurses and sews for 
them ; mends, makes, brews, bakes, and fills the 
complex position imposed by marriage, a growing 
family, housekeeping cares, and the demands of 
her husband. (We are now considering the 
great army of people in moderate circumstances.) 
During times of sickness the mother loses sleep 
and is taxed to the utmost limit of her strength ; 
unlike the trained nurse, she neither claims hours 
for making up lost rest nor for going into the 
fresh air. Respite and refreshment are only for 
the paid incumbent, who renders stated service, 
at stated hours, for stated remuneration, and who 
can escape from a galling situation without resort- 
ing to the divorce courts. But not so the wife 
and mother ; pride and love for her children bind 
her to her hard fate until she drops and finds her 
first and last resting place — the grave. 



THE HOUSEKEEPER 241 

During years of unremitting service as wife, 
mother, seamstress — often general house-worker 
also — her return a roof, a bed, food, and clothes 
— often prepared and made by her own hands. 
For every expenditure she gave an account to the 
lord of the purse, unless, like many of her 
equally dolorous sisters, she condescended to rifle 
her husband's pockets when he slept, and thus 
secured small change for unquestioned use. 
When Death, at last, kindly severs the partner- 
ship the man, bereaved beyond his own realiza- 
tion, casts about for someone to look after his 
house and motherless children. Now the long- 
ignored subject of compensation, not to be 
evaded, confronts him. Board and lodging no 
longer count. For far less service than the wife 
gave he must pay. Aside from the monthly ac- 
count of household expenses, will he ever pre- 
sume to inquire about the cash outlay of the new 
manager? She would laugh in his face, should 
he so far forget himself. And, failing to come to 
time with her salary, he would find himself left 
to paddle the household canoe alone while facing 
a legal action for unpaid wages. Pay, pay, pay, 
is the burden of the song forever ringing in his 
ears; pay for keeping the household wheels re- 
volving to the tune of breakfast, lunch, and din- 



242 HOUSE AND HOME 

ner ; pay for nursing the little ones ; pay for tend- 
ing the sick; pay for making the children's 
clothes; pay for their mending and his own. 
Gone is the day for these things to be done by 
magic, as it were, costing him no thought. It 
passed with the passing of his wife. 

No wonder we have the conundrum: " Why is 
a widower like a young baby?" " Because at 
first he cries all the time, then he begins to take 
notice, and it is very hard to get him through the 
second summer." Wives are frequently, though 
not always, economical investments; they leave a 
good margin for tobacco and beer. 

A merry girl used to say that, if ever she 
married, she should look for a widower who could 
bring a recommendation from his first wife. If 
a No. 2 should depend upon the first wife's 
reference, many of the lords of creation would 
continue in single blessedness with no opportunity 
to " endow with all their worldly goods " more 
than one overconfiding woman. 

Someone protests: " Oh, but the marriage rela- 
tion is a romantic affair and forbids sordid 
money-consideration between the pair. It is all 
one interest." All one interest too often is true. 
But which one? 

The man who, willingly, permits his wife to 



THE HOUSEKEEPER 243 

spend her life serving him and their children un- 
requited even to the extent of wages paid to any 
servant in his, or some other, house, is not likely 
to impart any romance to married life. Unre- 
mitting care and household work, with an empty 
purse, perpetually divorce one from romance. 
Romance and sentiment starve in married life 
where one partner clutches the pocketbook and 
the other's purse is perpetually empty, or only 
now and then supplied with a niggardly dole for 
which an account must be rendered. This is no 
overdrawn picture. Along the various grades 
of society there are wives whose rights, in this 
respect, are totally ignored by their inconsiderate 
husbands. The " poor rich wife " has passed 
into a proverb because the stupid, hoary old cus- 
tom of regarding woman as dependent is still in- 
grained in the genus homo. 

She should be a lovely vine clinging about that 
sturdy oak — Man. The sturdy oak often proves 
to be a sapling unable to bear the rigorous blasts 
of housekeeping cares and incapable of minding 
the children even when he is in the house. This 
makes no difference in the opinion of those 
who are governed by the traditions of the 
elders. 

The w r ife of a wealthy New York man used to 



244 HOUSE AND HOME 

declare, with tears, that she was constantly sub- 
jected to mortification because her splendid en- 
vironment, elegant equipages, and costly clothes, 
together with her husband's well-known wealth, 
attracted people who were seeking subscriptions 
for the advancement of worthy objects. With- 
out any bank account of her own and even with 
her purse empty, she was always obliged to say, 
" I must first consult with my husband." As he 
required all bills to be sent to him for payment, 
while requiring his wife to be gowned in keeping 
with her splendid cage and their grand entertain- 
ments, she was literally a pampered pauper in her 
own home — the beggar on the street had more 
small change than that dolorous wife. Kindly 
Death came at last to her rescue by unclasping 
the tight fist of the man, who was compelled to 
leave his possessions forever. His widow 
was not altogether inconsolable. Her visible 
mourning was not painful to herself. Signing 
checks for it with her own hand thrilled her with 
pleasure unknown in her married experience. 
Paying her own bills served to assuage any pos- 
sible pang of widowhood. It is pleasant to be 
able to state that she survived her liege-lord many 
years to taste the joys of independence, and never 
seemed impatient to be reunited to him in the 



THE HOUSEKEEPER 245 

spheres where money, bank accounts, and mar- 
riage are supposed to be unknown. 

Stories are current, more truthful than poetic, 
showing the devices resorted to by some of these 
" poor rich wives " to outwit their close-fisted 
spouses. The arrangements are more remarkable 
for ingenuity than dignity. They make one 
think of the crooked ways of tax and tariff 
evaders. The husbands of these women prob- 
ably are adepts in those evasions, consequently 
their wives are in a school of duplicity. Apt 
pupils, they secure ready cash to spend by taking 
the dressmaker, milliner, and even their teachers 
of languages and music into their confidence. 
Together they conspiretto extract funds from the 
lord of the exchequer without his knowledge. 
The bills of these people are by an understanding 
augmented beyond their customary charges, and 
the surplus finds its way into the ever-empty 
purse of the w 7 ife. Undoubtedly she has no com- 
punctions, as she feels and knows it is her own, 
unjustly withheld, that she thus secures. Of 
course there can be no " heart to heart confi- 
dences " between these unhappy wives and their 
narrow-minded husbands. 

Poor indeed are these women in ways unrelated 
to an empty purse. Poorer are the men who 



246 HOUSE AND HOME 

drive them to such petty deception. But the un- 
paid working-housekeeper has no such oppor- 
tunity to secure a private purse. Hers is a work- 
a-day world. Small wonder, then, if she rob her- 
self of needed sleep to play the wary pickpocket 
after her spouse is locked in slumber. Fancy the 
picture! A woman rifling the pockets of her 
dear lord in the small hours that she may have 
car-fares and postage stamps without always say- 
ing, " Please, sir, give me a dime." 

Turning from these unpleasant facts, it is re- 
freshing to know that there is a reverse side to 
the picture. Not all men are so niggardly to 
their wives. A new order of man came upon the 
scene some time ago, the sort that respect their 
wives and deal in an honorable, manly, business- 
like way with them. One of this refreshing type 
not only gave his wife the household money to 
disburse in her own way and pay all bills, but 
also gave her a generous allowance for her own 
private expenses; in addition, he kept a careful 
account of his own foolish outlay for cigars, and 
every month handed to his wife exactly as much 
as he had wasted for her to waste, if she so 
pleased, in some equally unwise way. 

That pair spent sixteen happy years together, 
and those who knew them intimately realized that 



THE HOUSEKEEPER 247 



romance never died out of their married life. 
When the sad hour of separation came there were 
only beautiful memories for the widow, who said, 
in the midst of her first grief, " He was always 
Douglas tender and true." 

In the new era the wife-housekeeper will be a 
partner and have her services recognized quite as 
fairly as are those of the paid superintendent of 
any establishment. 



u 



CHAPTER NINETEEN 



V 



BOOKS THAT SHOULD BE IN THE 
HOME 



The millionaire's library. Make old and young resourceful. The 
unabridged dictionary. Atlas of the world. Teach chil- 
dren to consult references themselves. 




rr 



TP OT every home can have a 
library well stocked with books 
of all sorts for reading or for 
reference. That is one of the 
luxuries that only the very rich 
can evoke by a few strokes of 
the pen. But the library that comes into exist- 
ence in that way is not the most enjoyable to its 
owner. In fact, the owner of that sort of a 
library is apt to be unfamiliar with books in 
general, and bookkeeping is more interest- 
ing to him than reading. His library would 
be a paradise to the student and true 
lover of books, but to him it is just a portion 
of his palace furnished, like all the rest, to order, 
by an expert with publishers' catalogues as guides. 

248 



BOOKS 249 

I know just such a library. It had to be fifty 
feet square to be in proportion to the grand man- 
sion that is five times fifty feet square. You feel 
like stopping up your ears when you view the 
whole establishment, for it screeches at you, 
" Just see how much I cost!" It is stunning 
everywhere. But the owner never has time to 
read anything but the stock market, and his hands 
are so full of coupons to be cut off that he has no 
place in them for holding any but a checkbook. 
The only people that really ever got any enjoy- 
ment out of his great, big, splendid library were 
the publishers who filled his agent's orders. 

Young married people and others starting out 
in life who are in moderate circumstances cannot 
usually begin with a supply of useful books un- 
less they have been so fortunate as to inherit the 
library of some literary relative, or have been 
blessed with wise parents and such wise training 
that they learned, very early in life, to love read- 
ing and to collect and take good care of books. 
This class needs no hints about book-collecting. 
But there are many who have not been so happily 
circumstanced in their youthful days, and they 
often feel the lack without knowing the best way 
to fill or overcome it. They long to give to their 
children the advantages which never were theirs, 



250 HOUSE AND HOME 

for they realize that, without a good education, 
early in life, people are ever after handicapped, 
no matter how much money they may get for 
themselves, or inherit from others. After per- 
fect health there is nothing, on the material plane, 
that makes children and grown people so inde- 
pendent, resourceful, and happy as an intimate 
acquaintance with the best literature. As no 
one can read all the books worth reading at once 
so there is no need for owning them all at once. 
But there are some books that every home should 
have and use constantly, and depend upon no 
outside library for them. 

Taking for granted that every home as a mat- 
ter of course will have at least one Bible and one 
copy of Shakspeare as part of its indispensable 
furnishing, we pass on to the next most impor- 
tant book without which much reading will be 
bereft of advantage to the reader. What is the 
use of words if one knows not their meaning or 
only has a glimmering idea of their signification ? 
What is the use of reading about places on this 
our globe, if they are not located and pictured on 
the mental gallery by finding them out on some 
map if not by seeing sketches of them ? Then an 
unabridged dictionary and a complete atlas of 
the world are absolutely necessary in every 



BOOKS 251 

household, where the family is expected to be 
cultured and read, as well as think, intelligently. 
Children taught to use these and other reference 
books, of which mention will be made in this 
chapter, with very little going to school will be 
more thoroughly educated when they grow up 
than other children who have expensive schooling, 
but no training in looking up meanings, places, 
and everything else that they come across in their 
reading which is not perfectly clear to them. 
No. 3 on the list of desirable books is a Classical 
Dictionary. These three should be always 
accessible and faithfully used by parents and 
children alike, for, after you show a child how 
to look up anything, it should do that work 
for itself. The books ought to be kept in one 
place on suitable stands, and no one allowed to 
lift them about from place to place. That 
is what damages heavy books. In other words, 
not use, but abuse wears them out too 
soon. In this connection it may as well be 
said that children should be taught early — 
just as soon as they handle books at all — the 
proper way to open and hold a book. All 
heavy books require especial care. They should, 
when too heavy for the hand, perpetually rest on 
a table or a stand. No one should ever be al- 



252 HOUSE AND HOME 

lowed to lean upon an open book. Those that 
can be handled without effort should be allowed 
to rest with their backs in the palm of the hand 
while one is glancing over them. This of course 
applies to books with nice bindings. I shall never 
forget my first lesson in holding a book. I was 
looking at a beautiful volume held open with 
both hands and enjoying its exquisite make-up — 
all unconscious that the owner was on tenter- 
hooks while watching me. After a moment he 
said gently: " Cousin L., will you let me show 
you how to hold a book? " And then he placed it 
as I have described in the palm of his hand, thus 
fully supporting the two sides of the cover, and 
let it open without straining it in any part. That 
lesson is always recalled to my mind when I see 
anyone handle a book roughly. The three books 
that have been just recommended can be bought 
by degrees where very careful expenditure is 
necessary, but, whenever it is possible, they should 
find very early introduction and place in every 
home. They will prove invaluable, ever faith- 
ful friends to all who seek their acquaintance. 
And there is never any risk of becoming too inti- 
mate with them. The Century or the Standard 
Dictionary — each one holds a mine of informa- 
tion — whichever you choose will be an endless 



BOOKS 253 

source of delight and settle for you all sorts of 
puzzling and doubtful questions. Let the father 
dispense with tobacco and the mother go without 
finery, at least until a row of those fascinating 
books rests upon a shelf within reach of all who 
know how to handle a valuable book. And never 
forget that all these are to be studied, not merely 
owned. Any standard books of prose and poet- 
ical quotations that are complete come next in 
importance for the family at home. All the 
books that one wants to read can be found in the 
public libraries, but, while reading, these books 
of reference should be very easily reached, and 
that is why they ought to be the nucleus of the 
home library. They make nice holiday gifts, and 
have the advantage of growing in importance the 
more you refer to them. In this they differ es- 
sentially from many things that are given as 
presents. A book of English synonyms is helpful, 
and if your Bible is not furnished with a full 
concordance, by all means get Cruden's and keep 
' it along with the Bible, which is a library in 
itself. No matter what your religious belief, or 
if you have none at all, the Bible should be fa- 
miliar to everyone who wishes to be well in- 
formed. So much of it is incorporated into all 
the best English literature, either directly quoted 



254 HOUSE AND HOME 

or in other ways, that one can hardly be said to 
have received a good English education if not 
thoroughly at home, and conversant, with the 
Bible. 

It is cruel to permit children to grow up with- 
out being acquainted with the wild flowers that 
they meet and the trees that they see, as they 
go about. There are delightful books, giving in- 
formation about both in such a simple way that 
whoever knows how to read can find out what 
they are and to what family in plant life they 
belong as easily as they can look up word-mean- 
ings in the dictionary; and a leaf brought home 
from a tree will be the means of revealing the 
name of the tree when it is compared with its 
counterpart in the book, written by an arborist. 
Mrs. Dana's " How to Find the Wild Flowers " 
would make a delightful birthday gift to a little 
girl who loves to go after the wild flowers. Nor 
should the stars be totally strange to children. 
There is a deeply interesting book upon astron- 
omy called " Warren's Recreations in Astron- 
omy." Not a dull sentence is there in it. If 
read aloud, and then the stars of the season are 
looked for in the sky, the children can soon greet 
the constellations by name and also recognize all 
of the bright stars in the heavens. With Whit- 



BOOKS 255 

taker's " Planisphere Showing the Principal Stars 
Visible for Every Hour in the Year, from Lati- 
tude 40 Degrees N.," and the astronomy just 
mentioned, no family need remain in dull igno- 
rance of the heavens in our latitude. 

Of books written especially for children there 
are so many worth reading over and over 
again it is not very easy to name only a few. 
But I should like to know that " Everybody's 
Fairy Godmother," written by Dorothy Quigley, 
and Mrs. Ewing's books, were in every child's 
hands. 



tT CHAPTER TWENTY Ef 



MISCELLANEOUS HINTS FOR HOUSE- 
WIVES 

In the kitchen. About the house. The traveler. The seam- 
stress. Bedspreads. The snorer. Fumigate with sulphur. 



IN THE KITCHEN 

O cook an egg daintily never 
let It boil. Drop it into water 
that is boiling, and then set it 
in a hot place to keep the heat 
steady. For those who like the 
yellow soft and the white set 
let it remain in the hot water five minutes. It 
will be found delicate, the white like jelly, but 
not hard and tough as it is when the egg is 
allowed to boil. If desired to have the yolk 
hard it is only necessary to leave It In the hot 
water seven or eight minutes, according to the 
taste of the person who is to eat the egg. 

Dairy products require the greatest care to pre- 
vent their becoming tainted by the atmosphere 

256 




MISCELLANEOUS HINTS 257 

or anything that has an odor. No matter how- 
agreeable it may be it will spoil butter, cream, 
and milk, if they are left in a refrigerator w T ith 
it. Fruit, fish, or anything that affects the air 
must not be near dairy products. Flow r ers will 
taint butter. Dairy products are exclusive. 
They must have a compartment by themselves, 
in a refrigerator. If anywhere else, they 
need to be carefully guarded from becoming 
tainted by nearness to other things. The most 
delicious butter and the freshest cream can be 
soon converted into soap grease by contact with 
the odor of cheese, fish, flesh, fowl, or flowers. 
The only safe way is to keep them by themselves. 
There is risk in having them with other things, 
even if they are closely covered. 

Stale bread and cake may be freshened by 
wrapping in a damp towel and placing them in a 
hot place until the towel dries, and then putting 
them in stone jars, covered. Another way is to 
wrap in a dry towel and place them in a colan- 
der set over a kettle of boiling water. This 
steams the bread or cake, and it can be eaten 
very soon. Care must be observed not to let 
them get too moist. If the crust seems wet, slip 
it into the oven and watch it for a moment; let 
it get dry, but not hard. 



258 HOUSE AND HOME 

There is an art in making good apple sauce. 
Tart apples that are tender and cook quickly 
are the best for the purpose in summer. Spitz- 
bergens, the finely flavored old-fashioned sort, 
make the most delicious apple sauce in winter. 
Do not peel many at a time, peel rapidly as pos- 
sible with a silver knife, and drop into cold water 
as fast as peeled. Have tea kettle boiling when 
slicing begins. Slice into a granite or porcelain- 
lined kettle of fresh, cold water. When all are 
sliced drain off the cold water and cover with 
boiling water, adding a few thin slices of a nice, 
clean lemon. Cook rapidly, stir often. Slow 
cooking darkens the sauce. Remove when tender, 
and beat with a perforated spoon, or else mash 
through a colander. Sweeten with granulated 
sugar to suit the taste. If you prefer the lemon 
slices left in, remove them before you pass the 
mass through the colander, and then return them 
to it after it is strained. 

Baked potatoes can be kept mealy by breaking 
them open as soon as baked. This lets the steam 
out that makes them moist after standing. They 
should be wrapped in a crash towel and kept in a 
hot place until eaten. 

When soup has been made too salt, a little vin- 
egar and sugar carefully added will often over- 



MISCELLANEOUS HINTS 259 

come the fault. If discovered in time, a feu- 
slices of raw potato scalded in it will have the 
same effect. They should be strained out before 
the soup is sent to the table. 

Celery stalks or leaves do much toward remov- 
ing the odor of onions from hands, dishes, etc. 

To keep food hot that is sent upstairs on a tray 
have the dishes heated first, and then set them 
on bowls of hot water. Heat the covers also. 

A cheap and useful tray-cosey can be made by 
using a pasteboard box that covers the entire tray, 
which can then be carried through halls and up- 
stairs without chilling the food. It is impossible 
to take too much pains about serving food hot, 
either on the table or when sent to rooms. 

EXCELLENT GRAPE JUICE RECIPE 

After removing stems and washing through a 
colander cover grapes with cold water, and boil 
until tender. 

Drain through a cheese-cloth bag. Add one 
coffee-cup of sugar for every three quarts of 
juice. Place over the fire just long enough to 
come to a boil. Skim and bottle while hot. Do 
not cook longer in the first place than absolutely 
necessary to make them tender. The second time 
observe underlining above. Much cooking spoils 



26o HOUSE AND HOME 

— — "-* ■ » 

the flavor. Seal the corks with paraffin. One 
who knows says: "This grape juice is excellent, 
palatable, and refreshing." 

The Rumford Baking Powder is declared by 
the same authority to be better than any other. 
Biscuits, etc., made with it retain their freshness 
longer than when made with any of the other 
powders. " Authority " has used it for twenty 
years, and sent from Utica, N. Y., to Chicago 
for it, until it was introduced in the Eastern 
States. 

To keep flies out of the larder sponge the win- 
dows daily with a weak solution of carbolic acid 
and water. You will not be troubled with flies 
if you attend to this faithfully. 

A piece of zinc buried in the live coals of the 
stove will clean out the stove pipe. 

Oyster shells used in the same way will re- 
move clinkers from fire brick. 

Try a small brush, not too stiff, for cleaning 
potatoes and other roots, and save your hands. 

A useful kitchen device is a perforated strainer 
that fits tightly in the escape of the sink. The 
strainer is funnel-shaped and easily allows liquids 
to flow into the pipe, but retains all solid matter. 

The bread-mixer is a useful invention ; it 
mixes thoroughly a whole baking of bread in 



MISCELLANEOUS HINTS 261 

five minutes, and is so easily operated that even a 
child can use it. 

The kitchen should never be without supplies 
of concentrated lye and washing soda. The lye 
ought to be used once a week to eat away the 
grease collected on the inside of the waste pipe of 
the sink. The proper way to apply it is to dis- 
solve it in boiling water and pour down the pipe 
while it is hot. 

Washing soda makes cleaning pots and kettles 
less laborious. Fill the utensil with hot water 
as high up as it requires cleansing, and set it over 
the fire with a tablespoonful of soda. After the 
utensil is cleaned the same soda water will be 
useful in cleansing the sink. 

ABOUT THE HOUSE 

When kerosene oil is spilled on the carpet 
cover the place thickly with buckwheat flour or 
oatmeal, and leave it twenty-four hours, at least, 
before brushing it up. 

Use soft tissue paper, moistened a little, for 
dusting when the cheese-cloth duster is not at 
hand. 

Felt soles pasted on the bottoms of rubber 
overshoes will help the wicked and the pious to 
walk in slippery places. A resourceful woman 



262 HOUSE AND HOME 

used an old felt hat and library paste for this 
purpose. 

When new shoes are very stiff or even a trifle 
tight, wet them w T ith alcohol inside, especially 
near the soles, and don immediately. Wear them 
until perfectly dry. Alcohol dries quickly. 

In cases of badly matted hair during illness, 
instead of sacrificing to the shears, wet it with 
alcohol to loosen the snarl. 

FOR TRAVELERS 

When traveling in the railroad cars carry a 
pinch of flaxseed in case a cinder gets in the eye. 
A seed inserted under the lid soon becomes glu- 
tinuous and the cinder gets coated; unless it has 
cut into the eye, it can be promptly removed. 

FOR THE SEAMSTRESS 

In making sleeves of lined dresses for children 
it saves time and trouble later on, if a good-sized 
piece of the goods be run on the inside between 
lining and material, where the hardest wear 
comes. By so doing the elbows do not give out 
so soon, and when they do wear it will not show, 
and the material is already in place for neat darn- 
ing. 

The hems of white petticoats, if turned up on 



MISCELLANEOUS HINTS 263 

the right side do not pull out so readily as they 
do when hemmed in the old-fashioned way. 

In making growing children's dresses, when 
the hems are straight, run a tuck in the under 
side of the hem for lengthening later. 

Before cleaning or pressing coats, waists, etc., 
catch all the pocket openings and the button-holes 
together to keep them in shape. 

In pinning bedspreads, curtains, etc., on 
clothes-lines place right side out with a little 
strip of clean, old rag under clothes-pin to pre- 
vent a mark. Always wipe line first. 

Black silk may be refreshed by sponging and, 
while quite damp, rolling on a clean broomstick 
to be left there until perfectly dry. Silk should 
never be ironed. 

To make pretty and inexpensive bedspreads get 
organdie and line it with sateen the color of the 
room-decorations. Border the sides with a ruffle 
of the organdie, twelve inches wide, unlined. 
These spreads are beautiful when made of or- 
gandie, with a colored pattern of flowers. They 
must always be lined, whether of plain white or 
in fancy patterns. Buy during the marked-down 
season, or else old-fashioned goods that are selling 
cheap; for this purpose they are quite as pretty 
as the latest, sometimes prettier. Be sure to have 



264 HOUSE AND HOME 

the spread long enough to cover the entire bed, 
pillows and all. 

TO CURE A SNORER 

If there is a snorer in the house, administer, 
at bed-time, six drops of olive oil on a pinch of 
mustard. The oil lubricates the larynx and the 
mustard acts as a counter-irritant. 

TO FUMIGATE WITH A SULPHUR CANDLE 

To fumigate with a sulphur candle, close all 
the doors and windows of the room and make it 
as air-tight as possible by pasting paper over the 
window cracks, and around the outside of the 
door after you have started the fumigation. 
Have a tub wit*h a little water in the bottom for 
the candle to stand in to prevent any danger of 
fire. A tin tub is good, but even that should have 
water. After lighting the candle and closing 
the door do not open for at least* twenty-four 
hours. Whoever goes in first should, if possible, 
have a window or door leading to outside air 
open opposite the door of the fumigated room in 
order to let in as much fresh air as possible before 
entering the room to open windows. As soon as 
the windows of the room are opened the door 
should be closed again and the place left to get 



MISCELLANEOUS HINTS 265 



well aired before anyone goes in to stay. To 
ventilate a place quickly open the windows at the 
top and the bottom at once, because that causes a 
steady change of air, while it enters at the bottom 
and forces the heated or foul air up and out at 
the top. 



u 



INDEX 



rx 



u 



Air (see Ventilation) 
Airing sick rooms, 225- 

226 
Apple sauce, 258 
Architects, shortcomings 

of, 12 
Artists, household, 73 
Astronomy, 254-255 
Atlas, 250 

Baking powders, 260 

Bath-room convenien- 
ces, 90-91; etiquette, 93 

Barrels (for packing), 35 

Bed making for the sick, 
220, 232 

Bed sores, 234 

Beds, airing and mak- 
ing, 101-102; boarding 
house, 103; servant's, 
109, 122 

Bedclothes, 68 

Bedspreads, 106, 263 

Bedsteads (care of), 105, 
107, 109 

Black silk freshened, 263 

Blankets, 102 

Bolts, 84 

Books, three most essen- 
tial, 250-251; correct 
handling of, 252; for 
children, 255 

Bread cutting, 170; mak- 
ing, 155; mixer, 260 

Broth (in sick room), 230 

Builders, contracts with, 
29 



Burglars, 85 

Buying a house, 21; fur- 
niture, 65 

Candle, ventilation by, 

225 
Cake, 152 
Care of things in use, 

174 

Carpets, sanitary, 76 

Carving, 180 

Cellar stairs, 15 

Cellars, 13, 14, 57 

Chain bolts, 84 

Children, apartment 

house, 201; and moth- 
ers, 193; and the truth 
(Chas. Wagner), 203; 
gifts to, 199; obstreper- 
ous, 187; occupations 
for, 195, 196, 197; the 
happiest, 194 

Children's cash allow- 
ance, 197; ethics, 194; 
health, 192; tempera- 
ture (normal), 217; 
thoughts, 205-206 

Christian : definition of 

a, 94 
Chimneys, 21 
Cinder in eye, to remove, 

262 
Clinical thermometer, 

215 
Clinkers, to remove, 260 
Coffee, after-dinner(serv- 

ing), 170, 183 



267 



268 



INDEX 



Convalescent, exercise 
for the, 237 

Cooking, good and bad, 
148-149 

Cook's judgment, how to 
gauge, 155 

Couches, 72, 73 

" Credit," 66 

Crimes against criminals, 
16-18 

Curtains, sash and win- 
dow, 74, 75 

Dainty articles, care of, 

39. 58 
Dairy products, how to 

keep, 256 
Desks, 76, 81 
Dictionaries, 251-252 
Dirt and doctor's bills, 76 
Disinfectants, 99, 229 
Dinner, announcing, 176; 

serving, 177 
Dish washing, 175 
Domestic service, 134; 

(anecdote), 130 
Door cleaning, 54 
Doors, to protect (when 

moving), 55 
Dust, to minimize, 48 

Economy, 28, 38, 48 
Eggs, how to boil cor- 
rectly, 256 
Employer and employee, 

T 35 
Etiquette, 184 
Excelsior (for packing), 

39 

Feather dusters, 77 



Felt soles, 261 
Finger bowls, 169 
Fireplaces (in sick rooms), 

225 
Flowers (on the table), 

168; (in sick rooms), 

229; books on wild, 254 
Flies, to drive out of 

larder, 260 
Floors, 53 
Flues, 20, 22, 23 
Food, to keep hot on a 

tray, 259 
Fuel, 45 

Fumigation, 55, 264 
Furniture, 46, 56, 63, 65, 

71, 81 

Glasses, to fill at table, 
178 

Golden rule, 163 

Gold piece, a child's (an- 
ecdote), 197 

Grape juice, receipt for, 

259 

" Half-baked people," 94 
Halls, lighting of, 85 
Hair, to untangle matted, 

262 
Heaters, 23 
Healthful location, 26 
House cleaning, 47, 48; 
cleaners, 58; hunting, 
25; maids, 102; occu- 
pied before buying, 27; 
service (Charlotte P. 
Gilman), 157; three es- 
sentials of a well-built, 
25; wife, 150, 156, 171 



INDEX 



269 



Housekeeper, 108, 157, 
171 

Housekeeper's allow- 
ance, 68 

Houses "built to sell," 

15 
Husbands, niggardly, 
246 

Ice (for the sick), 230 
Ideals, 156 
Indigestion, 147 
Injured limb, to protect, 

234 
Intelligence offices, 144 
Intemperance, 210 
Invalids, care of, 220; 

toilet of, 228; to lift, 

231 

Jewelry (an anecdote), 36 

Kerosene oil, to remove 

spots, 261 
Kitchen odors, 149; 

range, 20; sink, 260; 

rules, 156; utensils, 150- 

156; window garden, 

152 
Knife handles, care of, 

174 

Landlords, 15, 16 
Leaks (in roof), 14 
" Living out," 128 
Light (in halls), 85; (in 

sick rooms), 223 
Locks and locking doors, 

64 
Lye, 261 



Manners, 163 
Matches and match re- 
ceivers, 53-54 
Mats, door, 53 
Mattresses, 41, 96, 98 
Mechanical skill, 62 
Metal rack for spoons, 

155 
Memory and trifles, 38 
Milk (in sick room), 230 
Mistress and maid, 120- 

139 
Modern methods in 

household service, 134 
Mops, 51 

Mosquito bars, 232 
Mother's "No," 193 
Moths, 71 
Moving, common sense 

in, 52 

Napkins, placing at 

table, 167 
Neatness, value of, 75- 

77 
Nervous people and the 

sick, 231 
Newspapers, use for old, 

49. 5i 

Notebook, the indispen- 
sable, 24, 36, 44, 165 

Nourishment (of working 
women), 45 

Occupations for children, 

196 
Old saying, 57 
Onions, to remove odor 

of, 259 
Open fires, 21 
Overfurnishing, 62 



270 



INDEX 



Packing, orderly, 33; du- 
plicate lists, 35; with 
excelsior, 39; kitchen 
utensils, 40; mattresses 
and bedding, 41 ; mark- 
ing clearly, 41 

Pain, the admonishment 
of, 210 

Pantry, 174 

Parents, 187; the example 
of, 190 

Patience, 140 

Patients, humoring, 237- 
238; to avoid jarring, 
231 

Partnership, 239 

Peppermint test (for 
plumbing), 19 

Pin, the detective, 104 

Pillows (for the sick), 220, 
231 

Plants, inexpensive, 85- 
86 

Plate changing, 170, 178 

Plumbing, cellar trap, 19; 
criminals and, 15 

" Poor rich " wife, 243 

Position, people of as- 
sured, 141 

Potatoes, baked, 258; to 
clean, 260 

Privacy, 79 

Pudding or pie, to serve, 
182 

Pulse, normal, 217; to 
count, 218 

References, 136, 137; 
writing and examin- 
ing, 144, 145 



Refrigerator (in the sick 

room), 230 
Repairs, estimating, 27 
Respiration, 218 
Rest, 208 

Roast, to serve, 180 
Romance and married 

life, 243, 246 
Rosebud's mission, a, 117 
Rover, Red, 106, 107, 

109 
Rubber mats, 89 

Salt cellars, 169 

Salad, to serve, 179 

Sash curtains, 74 

Screens, 70, 230 

Seamstress, hints for the, 
262 

Servants, consideration 
for, 141; discharging, 
145; disrespectful, 142; 
engaging, 140-144; ide- 
al, 158; inquiries of, 
140; leisure of, 125; re- 
spect for, 143 

Servant's rights, 123; 
rooms, 118 

Shades, window, 74 

Sheets (for the sick), 221; 
rubber, 221; to change 
(for the sick), 232 

Shoes, to soften stiff, 262 

Sick, to lift the, 231 

Sick room cleanliness, 
228; light in, 223; odors 
in, 227; temperature of, 
224; visitors in, 236 

Silver, 168, 174 

Single beds, 68, 69 



INDEX 



27 1 



Smoke damage, 22 
Snoring, to prevent, 264 
Social " caste," 133; er- 
rors (Chas. Wagner), 
142 
Soups, toserve, 177; over- 
salted, 258 
Soul, independent, 194 
Step-ladders, 47, 63 
Stovepipe, to clean, 260 
Subservience, 162 

Tags, 34 

Table appointments, 169- 

171; clearing, 171-181; 

linen. 168: setting, 165, 

167; side, 169 
Temperature, normal, 

214; to take, 215, 217; 

of the sick room, 224, 

228; and temperament, 

2I 5 
Thermometer, clinical, 

215 
Tissue paper (for dust- 
ing), 261 



Tool box, 62, 63 
Tray cosey, 259 
Trunkpacking,7o; stand, 
7i 

Vegetables, to serve, 178 
Ventilation, 14, 225, 226, 
227, 264, 265 

Wall paper, old, no 
Water closet, 91 
Waitress, 165, 176, 179, 

181, 183, 184, 185 
Washing soda, 261 
Water (in the sick room), 

230 
Wife, compensation to a, 

240 
Wife's position, 241; 

stories, 243-246 
Widower, 241, 242 
Widowhood, 244 
Window fastenings, 84; 

hangings, 75; shades, 

74 
Working women, 45 



SEP 17 1904 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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